


this thing of darkness (i acknowledge mine)

by tfm



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe, BDSM, Bottom Beauregard (Critical Role), Dark, F/F, S&M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-22
Updated: 2019-10-22
Packaged: 2020-07-11 10:54:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 21
Words: 53,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19926925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tfm/pseuds/tfm
Summary: It seems to be common knowledge across Wildemount that the Sapphire of the Sea is having an affair with the Lady of Kamordah, and has an "arrangement" with the mysterious Herald of the Storm, but that’s only a fraction of the story.Or, set in a universe about six feet to the left, Beauregard Lionett sleeps with a lot of dangerous people. One day it's going to bite her in the ass.





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so.
> 
> This story is probably going to be a few shades darker than a lot of stuff I've written so far (and definitely a few shades filthier). Instead of filling up everyone's dashes with six pages of tags, I'll post any trigger warnings or things that you may want to avoid at the start of every chapter, in addition to whatever pairings appear, in case there're some you want to skip. Let me know if you want to see any triggers listed that I forget to include. The story as a whole will include a lot of BDSM, and in a way that isn't always practiced healthily by its practitioners. There won't be any rape/non-con, but some of the stuff that happens along the way could be upsetting to anyone who has experienced sexual violence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains:
> 
> Beau/Jester  
> Impalement  
> Restraints  
> Fingering (Anal and vaginal)  
> Strap-on use  
> Face-sitting

Chapter One

It seems to be common knowledge in the Empire that the Sapphire of the Sea is having an affair with the Lady of Kamordah, but that’s only a fraction of the story.

Affair, perhaps, is the wrong word; neither of them are otherwise engaged, and they are not particularly secretive about it, but the rumor mill churns nonetheless, as it is wont to do. Whenever the Lady is in Nicodranas for business, she spends hours on end at the Lavish Chateau, and the Sapphire cancels all her clients for the week.

“Lady” is an ironic term, given to Beauregard by her competitors, and a long time ago, she had decided to lean into it. If she wields it like a weapon, then they cannot use it to harm her. Cannot use the fact that she refuses to wear dresses, or be married to a man of the court, or do anything that a true Lady would be expected to do. For a year or two, they had compared her to The Gentleman, until Beau had crushed his operation into dust, and taken half his employees with her.

They don’t laugh about her now.

Not now, when her operations spreads from Felderwin in the east, to Kamordah in the west, and all the way down to the Wyoun gates in the south. The north is a bit more of a minefield, and Beau has taken more than a few trips to Shady Creek Run to parlay with Ophelia Mardun. Though negotiations are continuing, it has ended, more than once, with Beau tied to a bed with a gag in her mouth. Not that she’s complaining. She does, after all, have a bit of a thing for tieflings.

Her first forays into the Menagerie Coast had been to test the waters for expansion, but had ended with something else entirely.

Usually Beau travels alone. Sometimes, Kara or Yasha will come along, if Beau thinks there might be trouble, and she needs the extra help, but she’s good enough with a blade that normally she doesn’t bother.

She’d been taught, after all, by the famed Kensei monks, with their fast feet and even faster hands. Her rapier could cut down even the most stubborn bandits.

Not that anyone would think much to look at her. By design, her appearance was unassuming; hand-tailored slacks, and shirt, and waistcoat, with leather gloves to protect her hands from calluses, and leather boots to protect her feet from the constant mud that seems to permeate the trip from Kamordah to the Coast.

It’s why she usually takes Thaddeus, the overbearing grey stallion that fucking hates her. She would take Nugget, or Sprinkle, or any one of the other horses, but Thaddeus is the only one stubborn enough for such a long journey.

Of course, that also means he’s stubborn enough to be a complete fucking asshole on the way.

They make it most of the way without issue (as long as you don’t count Thaddeus trying to escape in the night no less than six times), and it’s not until they’re about two hours from Nicodranas that he really kicks up a stink.

Perhaps it’s something to do with the storm that they’re riding through, and the fact that it’s getting closer. Beau doesn’t want to stop now. Stopping now would mean spending another night on the road, and she’s talked up the warm bed and hot food to herself so much that she can’t back out now. She’s going to get to Nicodranas if it kills her.

She should have, she thinks, brought Yasha.

Not that the storms are any better when Yasha is around, but the aasimar has a sort of aura that seems to protect anyone around her from the worst of the weather; from things like lightning strikes.

That, plus Beau has something to stare at on the road, other than the endless trees, and mountains, and hills.

Thaddeus slows to a mere trot, hesitant.

‘I will send you to the fucking alchemist to make glue!’ Beau yells at his stubborn ass, and that, he takes as an indication that he’s not wanted anymore, and screeches to a halt. Beau’s not exactly ready for this, and the sudden stop sends her flying. She tries to use her agility to land softly, but ends up tripping on a boulder, and landing flat on her back.

_Ugh_.

There are a few – more than a few – things broken, and she’s vaguely aware of Thaddeus galloping off into the distance, away from the thunderstorm.

Motherfucker.

Beau moves to get up, and a sharp pain in her abdomen makes itself known. She reaches a hand down, and it comes back wet with blood and rain. Hmm. That’s not good. She tries to at least get up onto her elbows, and even that sends a wave of pain down her body. She looks down, and sees that there’s a tree branch poking out of her stomach.

Well, fuck.

She must have hit the damn thing at just the right angle for it to impale her. She’s been impaled by a lot of swords (kind of one of the dangers of being a sword-fighter) but doesn’t have experience with tree branches.

She tries to ease herself up; maybe she can break the branch, and—

_Nope. Nopenopenope._

Moving only seems to pull the wound open further, sending a river of blood down her stomach. The blood seems to be leaving her head, and the rest of her body, and spilling out onto the muddy ground.

Fuck.

This isn’t how she thought she’d die.

She’d thought she’d die at the tip of someone else’s sword. Or at the very least, in a fight. Lying in the mud and rain, bleeding to death just an hour and a half out of Nicodranas.

That’s just insulting.

…

Jester’s taking out her earrings for the night when there’s a knock on the door.

It had been something of a slow one; a few songs on the piano, and then just one client. A new man, this time. He had been sweet, and nervous, and she knows her mama would have done a much better job, but he seemed to have left satisfied. He makes plans to come back again next week, in any case, which is good. There haven’t been as many repeat customers lately, and Jester wonders what she’s doing wrong.

Her mama has big shoes to fill.

It hadn’t been, she knows, her mama’s plan for her to take over at the Lavish Chateau. Up until the day that she’d died, they’d talking about “what you’ll do after,” and the consensus had been that Jester would sell the place, and travel for a bit.

When it came down to it though, she just couldn’t let go of the place that had been her home for so long. The only logical course of action had been to take over where her mother had left off.

Of course, given that most people had come for the Ruby, not the Sapphire, there were very few customers that remained. Jester’s still working on building her own client base, but she’s not as elegant as her mama, nor as comforting, nor as compassionate.

But, she’s doing _so_ much better than she had been two months ago, so she’s sure that things will keep improving. She can’t let herself think about what happens if they don’t.

There’s a knock at the door. Blude’s knock. Strong and reliable.

‘Come in,’ Jester tells him.

‘Miss Jester,’ Blude says. ‘Some merchant travelers have brought an unconscious woman to us; they say they found her on the way from the Wyoun Gates. She needs healing’

Jester frowns.

It’s not often that people come to her for her cleric abilities, as opposed to her...other abilities.

‘Bring her upstairs,’ she says, and rolls up her sleeves.

The woman is bleeding a lot. She looks bad – way worse than all the other injuries Jester has had to heal. Most people come to her with cuts and bruises, and occasionally, things that are more inside the head. She’s a pretty good talker, so usually she doesn’t have to use her magic for that.

There’s a tree branch sticking out of the woman’s abdomen; thick, and sharp, and has done no small amount of damage. It’s hard to tell, though, with the waistcoat and the shirt in the way.

Jester takes her sewing shears, and cuts away the woman’s clothes. The woman’s entire torso seems to be covered in blood.

It doesn’t look good.

‘Hold her shoulders,’ Jester tells Blude. ‘I need to pull the branch out.’ The minotaur holds the shoulders down, and Jester pulls.

The woman gives a horrifying sort of gasp, and the blood starts absolutely pouring from the wound. Jester put her hands straight to it, and cast _Cure Wounds_ , as strong as she can manage. The wound closes up, and color starts to return to the woman’s cheek. Her breathing evens out.

Her pants, though, are still covered in blood, and Jester knows it would be nice for the woman to wake up to clean, mended and laundered clothes, and a nice hot breakfast. She pulls at the legs of the pants, and as the woman doesn’t have a lot in the way of hips, they come off without too much of a struggle.

It’s not the first naked woman that Jester’s seen. She’s taken a few as clients; a barmaid from Port Damali, a sailor in for the weekend, a noblewoman from Rexxentrum, to name a few.

Unlike the others, this woman’s body is covered in scars, the most recent of which is the wound that Jester has just healed up. They’re mostly thin slices, as though from a blade, though Jester sees a few that she thinks might be arrow wounds.

There’s a brand on the side of one hip that’s long since scarred over. It looks like an eye with a slitted pupil; too neat to be unintentional. The woman, or someone else, must have done it on purpose. Still, Jester gives it a few sparks of magic, watches it heal over just a tiny bit.

When she’s finished healing, Jester examines the woman’s clothes. She can’t help herself, she’s intrigued; it’s not often a noblewoman of martial training shows up on her doorstep, unconscious and bleeding. It’s the sort of thing that had happened in all of those books that she’d read growing up, though it’s usually a man with broad shoulders, and a square jaw.

This woman’s shoulders are reasonably broad, she thinks. Though, she has the build of someone that fights with speed and dexterity, rather than strength. The clothes have been custom-made, and look expensive; fine cotton, lined with silk. Definitely not the sort of clothing Jester would have expected an experienced duelist to wear; hence the tree branch.

The holes in the clothes are easily _Mended_ , and Jester takes the whole lot (including pants) to Blude to send for cleaning. It seems like the nice thing to do.

The nice thing to do. Jester always tries to do the nice thing, and it usually doesn’t bite her in the tail. When she returns to the room, though, there’s a sword wielding woman waiting at the door, who, just ten minutes ago, had been unconscious.

Jester can’t help but give a yelp of surprise.

The woman is still mostly naked, and doesn’t seem to give a shit about that fact. She’d just as soon kill Jester as look at her, judging by the sword that’s pointed at Jester’s chest.

‘Where am I?’ the woman demands. ‘Where are my clothes?’ In another circumstance, Jester might have stared appreciatively, but this hardly seems the time. Either way, she clenches her fist a little bit, and calls upon the Moonweaver.

‘You’re in Nicodranas,’ she tells the woman. ‘You came off your horse on the road. Some merchants brought you here.’

The woman runs a hand along her stomach, where the red scar still shines.

‘I healed you,’ Jester adds, perhaps unnecessarily.

‘Yeah? And who are you?’

‘I’m the Sapphire of the Sea, but you can call me Jester.’

That, after everything else, is the thing that finally gives the woman pause. She lowers her sword, if only slightly, and Jester has no doubt that if she’d wanted to, the woman would have been able to kill her in a single strike.

‘You’re the Sapphire of the Sea?’ she asks, maybe a little incredulously. Jester’s had that reaction before. Most people have heard of her mother, of the Ruby, so when they think of the Sapphire, they tend to think she’s more mature, more experienced, more... _sexy_ than she actually is.

‘Yeah.’

There’s a brief pause. ‘How much for a night?’

…

Beau wakes up naked, and covered in blood, which is probably not the worst way she’s waken up before.

Her clothes are missing, and her sword is resting against the nightstand, next her coin purse. She vaguely recalls Thaddeus getting spooked by some lightning, but the details are a little fuzzy. Sure enough, there’s a scar across hers stomach, and her head is still pounding. Her childhood riding instructor, Fabian, would have been very disappointed, if he hadn’t died in a riding accident himself, ten years ago.

The sound of the door opening reaches her ears, and she jumps to her feet, grabbing the sword. It hardly matters that she’s naked; her clothes don’t provide anything in the way of armor anyway.

The woman that steps in gives a tiny scream of shock at seeing Beau standing there. Whether it’s the sword, or the fact that she’s naked, it’s hard to tell. She’s a tiefling – a bright blue tiefling, which Beau has never seen before – and is a few inches shorter than Beau. Her hair is a few shades darker than her skin, and her eyes are a bright lavender. She’s wearing a tightly-laced bodice over a puffy-sleeved dress, and her cleavage is hard to miss.

Beau can’t quite tell whether she finds it cute, or sexy; it seems to be a frustrating mixture of the two. Nevertheless, no matter how cute and sexy her captor is, Beau isn’t going to let herself get distracted.

‘Where am I?’ she demands. It seems like the most pertinent question. ‘Where are my clothes?’ Not as important, but would still be nice to know the answer.

‘You’re in Nicodranas,’ the tiefling says. ‘You got thrown from your horse. Some merchants brought you here.’ Beau doesn’t lower the sword, instead, looking back down at the scar.

‘I healed you,’ the tiefling continues, clearly noticing the way Beau is looking at her wound.

‘Yeah?’ Beau says. It’s a little more defensive than she’d intended, but she’d woken up naked, and she hadn’t gotten that way by accident. ‘And who’re you?’

‘I’m the Sapphire of the Sea, but you can call me Jester.’ Beau lets her sword fall a few inches. She’s heard of the Sapphire of the Sea, of course. More accurately, she’d heard of the Ruby of the Sea, and had heard the news of her death a couple of years ago. Of the Sapphire, she’s heard bits and pieces – all good things – but not nearly enough that she’s heard about the Ruby. Even still, she knows that the Sapphire is one of the most highly sought after Courtesans in all of Exandria.

‘You’re the Sapphire of the Sea?’

The Sapphire who can sooth any ill with a single kiss, who can make grown men weep, who is, according to the song, the best lay ever.

‘Yeah.’

Not quite what Beau had expected. Still, you were only naked in the bedroom of a world-famous courtesan once.

‘How much for a night?’ The tiefling grins, and it’s not particularly sexy or mysterious, but it’s very cute.

The Sapphire – _Jester_ – seems to consider it for a moment.‘One hundred gold,’ she says, and Beau doesn’t even stop to consider it. More expensive by a country mile than most companions she’s hired (and she’s hired a few), but given that it’s the Sapphire of the Sea, she’s all but guaranteed a pretty fucking good time.

‘Done.’

There’s a moment of awkwardness between them. ‘Oh,’ says Jester. ‘I suppose we have to do something now.’

‘Uh, yeah, that is the point of paying for a night of entertainment,’ Beau tells her, and reiterates that thought in her head: _this really is not what she had expected_.

For one, she hadn’t expected the Sapphire of the Sea to actually _be_ blue.

‘Well, I mean, usually it starts nice and slow, with tea, and conversation, and figuring out what you want,’ Jester tells her. ‘But you’re already naked, and Blude can sometimes take a while to wash clothes, so if you want to just fuck straight away, then that’s good, too.’

Beau considers her options. She _is_ already naked, and there’s nothing like getting curb-stomped by a tree to put her in the mood for a good fucking.

‘Yeah,’ she says. ‘Let’s get to it.’

‘Alright, how do you like it?’ Jester asks, and her tone is so blasé she could be asking Beau how she likes her eggs in the morning.

_Rough_ , is what Beau usually says, but she’s had a lot of rough today already, so instead, she says something that she doesn’t usually say, which is, ‘Just...take care of me.’

It’s about six shades more vulnerable than she usually gets with people she’s just met, but chances are, Beau’s never going to see the Sapphire of the Sea again. In any case “take care of me” can be interpreted a lot of ways. She’s not even supposed to be in Nicodranas; the plan had been to bypass Nicodranas entirely, following the coast south-east to Port Damali, but the storm had scuppered that plan.

But, she’s not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. Or rather, a hundred gold horse in the mouth.

‘Usually, when I take care of people, I...you know, very sexily take off their clothes, so you’ll just have to pretend that’s what happened,’ Jester announces. ‘Lie back on the bed, and I can finger you for a bit to start.’

Amused, Beau sets her sword on the nightstand, and climbs back onto the bed. This time, she doesn’t get under the covers.

Jester is three fingers deep, when she says, ‘What’s your name, by the way?’

Beau laughs, and it must be a full-body laugh, because Jester’s fingers twitch, and everything seems to spasm slightly.

‘My name is Beauregard,’ she tells Jester. ‘But you can call me Beau.’

‘Beau.’ Jester tests the name out, purposefully exaggerating her lip movements. She pumps her fingers again. ‘Where are you from, Beau?’

‘I’m from Kamordah,’ Beau says. Once upon a time, she might have been ashamed by that fact, but now, like everything else, she holds it to her advantage.

‘Ooh,’ Jester says, and she sounds genuinely excited. ‘I’ve always wanted to go to Kamordah. Have you met the Lady of Kamordah? I’ve heard she’s like...a super evil crime boss.’

Beau is a little bit affronted. _Super evil?_ ‘Who told you that?’ she demands.

‘Oh, you know, lots of people come through here that have lost business to her. This is a pretty big trading port, you know.’

‘Well,’ Beau says, hesitating, because she doesn’t exactly have a good comeback to that. Generally, she tells people she’s in the “import-export” business, which isn’t exactly untrue. But it’s not as though her being the Lady is a secret. But still. She’d like to think that at the very least she’s neutral.

There’s a sudden gasp from Jester, as though she’s uncovered some great conspiracy. Her fingers have stopped moving now, and are just sitting inside Beau while they talk. ‘Beau, are _you_ the Lady of Kamordah?’

‘I mean,’ Beau says, a little weakly. ‘Yeah?’ The revelation had gone a little more smoothly in her head. In fact, most of her one-night stands had gone a little more smoothly in her head. For some reason, she counts herself amongst the people that think she’s suave, and elegant, and good in bed, when really, she’s kind of just...a disaster.

A disaster who (in the context of sex) likes being told what to do, likes being taken care of, likes being...well...maybe a little bit submissive. Not that she wants anyone else in the world to know that. Somehow everyone does anyway.

‘Oh, that’s so _cool_ ,’ Jester says, and it’s really not the answer Beau had been expecting. It’s kind of becoming a thing, with the Sapphire. ‘Have you like...killed lots of people?’

Beau considers the question.

The answer, of course, is yes (and that has come with its own dramas and consequences), but probably far less than people think she has. For the most part, she lets Yasha or Kara do the killing, but she tends not to dissuade the rumors that tend to spread.

If people are scared of her, then that’s better for business. Unlike some of the other crime syndicates on Wildemount (cough the Iron Shepherds) she won’t even touch human trafficking. Too messy, for one thing. She’s kind of soft, for another. ‘Can we...’ she says, gesturing down to where Jester’s fingers have been, unmoving, for the last five minutes or so. Okay it’s probably been one minute, but Beau’s on edge enough that it feels like five.

‘Oh, yeah.’ Jester starts pumping again. ‘Do you want me to put one in your ass?’

‘Go for it,’ Beau says. She’s not used to people asking her what she wants in situations like this, and she’s surprised to find that she doesn’t entirely hate the agency. Normally, she just lets people do what they’re going to do, and stop if it turns out they’re things she doesn’t want to be doing.

It definitely won’t be the first, or the biggest thing she’s had up there, but she’s still kind of amused by this unconventional courtesan, who doesn’t even bother slicking up her finger before just shoving it right in.

‘Holy fuck!’ Beau says, and jumps slightly, which sends another wave of sensation through her.

‘Oh, sorry, should I have used lube?’

‘I mean...’ Beau says. It seems kind of obvious. Not that she minds too much. A lot of her previous sexual partners haven’t been courteous enough to slick things up before going in, but at least Jester had apologized. She’s pretty sure that’s the sort of thing that a courtesan should know about. She gets the feeling that Jester hasn’t exactly been doing this all that long.

‘Okay,’ Jester says. ‘I’ll make sure to do that next time.’ Beau raises an eyebrow at the phrasing. Not that she’s totally against the “next time” idea. Even though she’s not the sort of woman Beau would usually go for, there’s an innocent sort of charm that’s incredibly endearing. Never mind that, judging by those muscles, the tiefling could probably lift Beau over her head, and squat her.

Instead, though, she thrusts her fingers in and out hard enough to have Beau clutching at the bed sheets, eyes rolling back into her head. Then, she pulls them out.

‘What the fuck?’ Beau demands. She had just been getting into it.

‘Ooh, you really are needy,’ Jester says with a grin. ‘Remember, I said I was just going to start with fingers, yeah? Now do you want me to fuck you with a strap-on, or eat you out?’

Beau hesitates. She’s generally up for pretty much anything, and errs on the side of letting whoever’s doing the fucking decide how they want to do it. Tonight, she decides, she’s not really in the mood for that kind of decision making.

‘Whatever you want to do is fine,’ she says. Then, she realizes that she’s talking to a madcap tiefling that just shoved a finger in her ass without lube, and adds, ‘Within reason.’

So that’s how she ends up getting railed from behind by a tiefling wearing an eight-inch strap-on. Again, not the biggest she’s ever taken, but Beau’s had enough pain from the fucking tree branch in her gut today. She can live with a relatively low-key sexual encounter.

When they’re finished, Beau goes for her coin purse sitting on the night-stand, at which point she remembers. The coin purse has about twenty gold in it. The rest of her gold had been in the saddlebags attached to Thaddeus, the horse that is probably halfway to Rexxentrum by now.

_Fuck_.

Beau gives Jester the twenty gold, and an apologetic look. ‘I’m sorry,’ she says, sincerely. ‘I completely forget that my horse ran off with all my stuff.’

‘Oh, it’s okay,’ the tiefling says, brightly. ‘It just gives you an excuse to come back.’

Beau frowns. She’s not a huge fan of owing people things, least of all courtesans that had enough clout to hire people to kill her. Jester seems to notice the uneasy look on her face.

‘How about this,’ Jester says, and there’s a mischievous sort of look on her face. ‘You can do something for me, and we’ll call it even.’

Beau wonders just what kind of “thing” she’ll be needing to do. Something involving threatening someone, or procuring something, she thinks, at first. Then, she sees Jester….gesturing to her own still bare pussy. A wave of relief washes over her.

That’s something she doesn’t even need to be asked to do.

In any case, Jester ties her to the bed with silken ropes, and sits on her chest.

‘What makes you think I like this sort of thing?’ Beau asks, before she can stop herself, nodding to the rope that’s not quite chafing her wrist.

‘I’m the Sapphire of the Sea,’ Jester whispers, conspiratorially. ‘I’m very good at figuring out what people like.’ And then she sits on Beau’s face. Beau’s had enough practice at cunnilingus from this angle, but she usually has her hands to help bolster her along. As it is, she doesn’t quite have the leverage to do anything except move her tongue. Thankfully, Jester seems to have done this enough, she knows which way to move her own body to get the things that she wants.

So it doesn’t take too long for her to come all over Beau’s face.

Then, like a considerate host, she unties Beau and leads her to the washbasin in the corner of the room. Beau wonders how many customers have cleaned themselves up here, after a night of passion.

Beau’s wrists are a little bit sore, but in a good way. ‘Does this make me a courtesan now?’ she asks, because technically, she’s traded sex for money.

Jester laughs. ‘You’re funny, Beau.’ Beau can’t quite stop the full-body blush she’s starting to get when Jester compliments her. ‘I don’t think you have to be a courtesan, but if you like, we can be in business together.’ Beau’s the one that laughs, this time, only she quickly realizes that it hadn’t been a joke.

‘I’m _serious_ ,’ Jester says. ‘The Myriad – the guys that run the all the shady stuff around here – they’re not good people. Maybe if you come here, we can have—’

‘A nice crime boss?’ Beau asks, amused at the thought. She’s not a nice person. She’s definitely not a nice crime boss. She’s a slightly less evil crime boss, but she’s not _nice_.

Pretty good sex aside, though, it’s not a bad idea to have an ally in the Sapphire of the Sea. If she had been willing to break her client confidentiality, then she’d have some great intel on the movers and shakers in the area.

‘We’ll see,’ she says, finally. ‘Though, tie me up a few more times like that, and I’ll do whatever you like.’


	2. Chapter Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter:
> 
> Mild Beau/Kara  
> Beau/Jester  
> Accidental Voyeurism  
> Restraints  
> Cunnilingus  
> Anal sex  
> Gagging/mentions of gagging  
> Mentions of whipping

Chapter Two

Beau’s still thinking about her night with the Sapphire two weeks later. By this point, she’s back in Kamordah, and has Kara between her legs. The half-elf is pretty good with her fingers, and even better with her tongue, and there’s nothing really weird between them when they go back to talking about trade routes an hour after fucking. Beau gets the impression that, like her, Kara’s not particularly interested in romance, which makes their situation ideal. Still, the idea that she technically has a girl in almost every port is kinda amusing to Beau. Really, though, it’s more like a girl in every port has her, which is a different thing altogether.

Kara hadn’t taken all that much convincing to defect from the Gentleman, and maybe Beau should be a little worried about that, but Kara has done some good work, and Beau hasn’t been let down yet. 

The only thing that’s gone down is Kara herself, multiple times, often over the course of an evening. She never stays the night, and Beau never asks her to. One day, she’s sure, Kara will just disappear from her life for good without explanation, little more than a ship passing in the night.

Beau emerges from her room an hour or so later, a little less tightly wound than she had been. They’d lost a shipment of Blood Wine to bandits on the Zadash-Rexxentrum segment of the Amber Byway (not to mention a couple of mercenaries that they’d hired to guard the cart). Beau always pays the requisite compassionate charge whenever a merc gets killed, which means that technically, she’s losing twice.

No matter which way she slices it, the north is getting more and more dangerous.

It used to be that her name alone was enough to strike fear into the bandits, but over time they’ve become more and more daring, hijacking one in twenty of her shipments. It didn’t seem like a lot, but when you had hundreds of shipments going back and forth across the continent every day, it started to add up. The shadier parts of the business were doing okay, but without the wine front, she’d have the Crownsguard knocking at her door (not that they don’t know exactly what she’s doing already, but they’ve never been able to find anything concrete). Of all the things that could fail and still have everything stay afloat, that wasn’t one of them.

The winery – _her_ winery – is the lynchpin of the whole operation.

Downstairs, Yasha and Kara are in the war room. Kara looks as though she might have just come from the tavern. She barely acknowledges Beau’s entry into the room.

Yasha, though, gives her a small smile, which Beau returns tenfold. ‘Eritol is loading up another cart to get to Rexxentrum,’ she tells Beau. ‘If it leaves tomorrow, and burns the midnight oil, it shouldn’t be too late.’

‘And what’s to stop the thing from getting seized again?’ Kara asks. Beau frowns. She’s not sure how many willing mercenaries they’ll be able to find, knowing what had happened to the last lot. After a long back and forth discussion (mostly between Kara and Beau), they end up deciding to double the guard. It’s an expensive course of action, but cheaper than losing another shipment of wine.

‘We should really think properly about moving south,’ Beau says. ‘Into the Menagerie Coast.’

They discuss that for a while, too, and Beau’s not entirely sure why she’s so intent on pushing Nicodranas as a potential location to set up shop. Maybe because she does technically have an in there, even if it’s just an in that fucked and fingered her.

A blush crosses her cheeks at the memory, but neither Yasha nor Kara seem to notice.

‘Well, I’ll see you tomorrow, then,’ Kara says, with a wink, as they finish up. Unlike Yasha, who’s as much of a bodyguard as she is an adviser, Kara doesn’t stay in the house.

Really, it’s more of a barracks than a house; given the number of rooms, it seems pointless for it to be just the two of them. At any one time, there are a dozen or so other “employees” staying there; runners, and smugglers, not to mention the ones that work in the winery proper.

When he’d been alive, Molly had lived here, too. Now he’s decomposing under six feet of earth, after getting shanked on Glory Run Road. Beau still has nightmares about that night, and Yasha refuses to even talk about it.

There’s a silence between them in the war room, that’s almost awkward.

‘Are you and Kara, uh...’ Yasha says. She looks mildly embarrassed, and Beau can’t quite help but wonder. She’s tall, and gorgeous, and maybe a little bit brutish. Beau has tried flirting with her a hundred times, but it’s like trying to seduce a brick wall.

‘Not like...together,’ Beau says. She’s watching Yasha’s expression, carefully. ‘It’s just a bit of fun.’

Yasha looks a little bit disappointed, and Beau isn’t entirely sure how to read that emotion. Is she disappointed that Beau is sleeping with Kara,  or is she disappointed that Beau had called it “fun”?

‘I mean, it’s not _exclusive_ fun,’ Beau continues, giving Yasha a sideways glance. The bait is set, the opening is there, but Yasha doesn’t bite. Beau sighs. _Ah, well_. She folds in the towel, and decides that it’s probably time for bed. 

Tragically alone.

It’s interesting, because for all of Yasha’s endearing awkwardness, she’s one of the most feared fighters across the land. Everyone and their blink dog has heard of the Storm Herald, who had killed her way across from Xhorhas, bathing in the blood of innocents.

Okay, maybe that’s a slight exaggeration. She wields an enormous greataxe, the righteous crack of thunder to Beau’s piercing strike. Though they don’t often get a chance to show it, they’re an amazing team on the battlefield.

(Would be an amazing team in the bedroom, too).

A month or so later, some more business opportunities present themselves on the Menagerie Coast. This time, Beau takes Kara  _and_ Yasha, because she doesn’t want a repeat of last time. The scar across her stomach still tingles a bit, though maybe that’s just the memory of Jester’s fingers.

‘This is a dangerous road,’ Yasha says. Her hand is at her greataxe, as it has been since they’d left the Wyoun Gates.

‘It is,’ Beau agrees. She remembers, then, that she hasn’t actually told either of them what had happened in Nicodranas. It’s not that she’d been trying to keep it a secret, but…it just hadn’t crossed her mind to tell them.

In any case, the weather is clear (and even if it hadn’t been, she has Yasha).

In Nicodranas, she buys pastries (considers buying flowers, but that feels like a bit too much), and shows up at the  _Lavish Chateau_ , where she, Yasha and Kara have booked rooms for the evening. Yasha and Kara are both at the bar, but Yasha has the look of someone that isn’t going to stay up that much longer. She’s not one for extended social contact, the Storm Herald.

The Sapphire is in the middle of a bright piano solo that Beau vaguely recognizes when she gets there, and Beau gets lost in it for a moment, trying to think about where she’s heard it before. She only rouses when a large, minotaurish hand lands on her shoulder.

‘My lady,’ Blude says. Emphasis on the “lady.” Beau looks around. No-one seems to have paid any attention to his words.

‘What do you want?’ Beau asks him, coolly.

‘The Sapphire asked to be informed if you ever showed up here again. To cancel all of her appointments if you did.’

‘Yeah?’ Beau can’t help but perk up at that revelation. ‘Well…I’m here. Conscious, this time,’ she adds.

He takes her to a waiting room, and that, more than anything, seems to strike home to Beau that the Sapphire is a  _courtesan_ . She sees lots of people every day. It seems weird that she’d be so interested in Beau. After all, Beau had technically skipped out on payment. She’s got a nice little purse with twenty platinum in it, this time. Part apology, part payment, part...tip? Were you supposed to tip companions? Beau had never tipped any of the ones she’d hired previously, and she vaguely wonders if she’d had been supposed to.

It’s less than fifteen minutes before Blude leads her up to the Sapphire’s chambers. By this point, Yasha has definitely turned in for the night. She knocks on the door, unsure of what to expect.

‘Come _in_ ,’ says the Sapphire, and her voice is strangely mischievous, as though she’s been lying in wait, ready to pounce. Beau goes inside, followed by Blude.

‘As requested, Jester,’ he says, in an oddly formal tone.

‘Hi,’ Beau says, a little awkwardly. Jester is wearing nothing but a lace bodice corset, and matching lace underclothes. Beau’s a little thrown, because it’s a great deal more raunchy than the dress that Jester had been wearing the last time they’d met. Beau tosses her the pouch.

‘Here. For last time.’

‘Oh, Beau,’ Jester says, looking into the pouch. ‘You didn’t have to do that.’ But she discreetly hands it off to Blude anyway. Beau suppresses a smirk. This is a business after all. ‘But for that, I won’t even kick you out after we’re done.’

Beau raises an eyebrow at that comment. The last time she’d been here, she’d snuck out of the room just after midnight, and slept on one of the couches  in the hallway .  It had seemed rude to share a bed without paying for it.

Without any preamble, Jester steps forward, and  pushe s the shirt off over  Beau’s shoulders, and  throws it away from the bed without looking. In anticipating of the evening’s events, Beau had forgone her usual chest wrappings, in favor of a pair of attached nipple clamps . Just in case.

‘Ooh,’ Jester says, when she sees them. ‘Did you wear these for me?’

‘Well, mostly I wore them for me,’ Beau says, biting her lip as Jester gives the chain a tug. ‘I’m a glutton for punishment.’

‘Do you want me to punish you?’ Jester asks, and for a moment, Beau considers the answer. Usually, people don’t ask her so explicitly what she wants. It’s kind of the whole schtick of her arrangement with them. She closes her eyes, and lets them do what they’re going to do, and if she doesn’t like it, well, that’s what the safe-word is for.

‘Maybe not tonight,’ Beau says, after a pause. It’s been a long day, and riding a horse means that she’s already sore enough without bringing anything corporeal into the equation. There are other things that Jester can do involving her ass that will still hurt, but not quite as much.

They’ve got all night for that, though.

She lets Jester take off her pants, and her smallclothes, and lick her pussy until she comes.

When they’re finished, Jester pulls Beau’s head into her lap, and Beau doesn’t resist. The  tiefling is playing with her hair as she talks. It’s somehow one of the most intimate gestures that anyone has ever given Beau, and also the least, because technically, she’s paying for it.

‘You have such nice hair,’ Jester says, as she brushes it out with her fingers. Beau wonders, vaguely, if this is a preset line that she has that she gives all of her clients. If there’s some sort of script that she follows. Then, she realizes that this is definitely not the sort of person that follows anyone’s script. 

‘…thanks?’ Beau says. It’s not really the sort of compliment that people give her. Mostly they say things like “Gee, your sword is sharp,” and “wow, that’s a really good smuggling business you run.” Okay, maybe not in those exact words. 

‘So.’ Jester’s voice has a triumphant sort of finality to it. ‘How exactly did someone like you end up being the biggest crime boss in Wildemount?’

It’s an exaggeration, but not by much. Her business does cover a huge amount of area, but it could always expand further.

Her story is in no way linear, and she’s done a lot of weird shit that had, in the end, brought her back to Kamordah.

There’s the four years she had spent in the mountain monastery, the year or two on the ocean, and another year in Shady Creek Run, plus a few other bits and pieces in between doing one thing or another (and one person or another).

In lieu of any other option, Beau starts at the beginning.

She tells the story of how, at seventeen, she’d met Dairon, the bald, elven monk who’d damn near eviscerated an unwanted suitor with her sword. Beau had never heard of monks wielding swords before; since she’d been barely old enough to walk, she’d been begging her father to learn how to fight, but he’d always refused.

So instead, Beau had run away, following the monk to the monastery in the mountains. She’d almost regretted it after the first week, when she was forced to collect snow to melt for water, to sweep the wooden floors until her fingers were callused. Not to mention the fact that she had to sleep on said wooden floors. But then, they’d given her her first weapon, a wakizashi just like Dairon’s, and they had taught her how to fight.

Or, more accurately, they’d taught her to be one with the blade, a bullshit sort of statement that Beau still isn’t quite sure the actual meaning of. But now, she can slice down almost anyone that looks at her funny. She carries a rapier, now, instead of a wakizashi, and that’s a whole story in itself, involving a falling out with Dairon, and a falling in  with piracy.

‘Who gave you this brand?’ is Jester’s next question, as though she’s reading Beau’s mind. She runs her fingers over the scar on Beau’s hip.

‘Uh…insane pirate captain.’ It’s not a lie. Not technically. Insanely _hot_ pirate captain would be the more appropriate nomenclature, and Beau would have to mentioned that she’d accepted it willingly after a night of having her ass whipped and her brains fucked out. Ophelia Mardun makes her cover it up any time she visits.

‘Oh wow.’ Jester’s voice is awed. ‘You must have done something _really_ bad.’

‘Yeah, I was pretty disobedient,’ Beau says, drily. Again, not a lie. She thinks the word “naughty” might be something of a giveaway. She decides not to tell Jester just how many of the scars on her back are from whip lashes.

‘Was it because of something you stole?’ Jester asks. Beau shakes her head.

Usually,  she has a very stark delineation between business and sex. It’s the only way she can continue to let herself get railed by half the women in Wildemount, and run a successful smuggling operation.

More than once, someone that’s heard of her sexual exploits, for lack of a better term, and tried to use it against her, thinking that just because she likes to be handcuffed and whipped in the bedroom, that somehow makes her an easy target for manipulation.

Other times, Avantika, or Ophelia, or any of the other people that Beau is in business with has tried to get frisky in the middle of meetings, or worse, talk about dead drops when she’s got a strap in. Every time it’s happened, she’s shut it down at the source, and by this point, they all know not to cross that line.

With Jester, though, it’s interesting. She’s not talking business, she’s talking  _about_ business, which is completely different. Even then, it’s not exactly secrets that she’s spilling. Like “we trade in booze and drugs” isn’t exactly a secret, but Jester seems to find it fascinating just the same. When Beau’s finished talking, the tiefling gives her clamped nipples a tiny flick, and says, ‘Do you want me to fuck your ass now?’

‘Sure,’ Beau says, and that’s how she finds herself face down in the mattress ten minutes later, wrists tied behind her back in an intricate pattern. Beau reminds herself to ask just where Jester had learned this shit. This time, thankfully, Jester had remembered to use lube, which is fortunate, because the strap that she’d chosen isn’t a small one, and Beau had still screamed a little bit (okay, a lot) when it had gone in.

‘I’ll have to gag you next time,’ Jester says, cheerfully. She’s not joking, and it’s the hottest fucking thing that Beau has ever heard in her life.

Beau’s vaguely aware of the sound of rushing footsteps and a loud argument before the door slams open, and Yasha steps in. Blude is a half a step behind her. ‘I’m sorry, Jester, I tried to stop her,’ he saying, just as Yasha says;

‘Beau, are you—’ The word _okay_ falls softly from Yasha’s tongue. Beau can’t quite see, on account of the fact that Jester is practically on top of her, but there seems to be a red flush across Yasha’s pale face. Beau moves to give her a thumbs up, before remembering her arms are tied behind her back. She settles with an awkward sort of smile, and regrets it immediately. ‘I’m sorry,’ the aasimar mutters. ‘I heard screaming.’

She leaves before Beau can say anything, and  _wow_ , the trip home is going to be awkward. Because Yasha’s just seen Beau getting railed in the ass by a tiefling courtesan, and if that doesn’t open doors to uncomfortable conversations, then nothing does.

‘Aw,’ Jester says. ‘She should have stayed. We could have gotten her to fuck your pussy.’ That thought sends Beau nearly straight to orgasm, and it’s just a few more thrusts before Beau’s screaming again, only this time, Jester’s shoved a leather switch into her mouth, so Beau can bite down on it.

Still, she’s kind of half-thinking of Yasha when she comes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things I forgot to mention in the last chapter.
> 
> Thanks to @iamthegaysmurf for the title and other help re bouncing of ideas. The title is from The Tempest, by ya buddy Will Shakespeare.


	3. Chapter Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter:
> 
> minor Beau/Kara  
> Beau/Avantika  
> Restraints  
> Punishment/Whipping  
> Cunnilingus  
> Anal  
> Nipple Clamps

Chapter Three

Beau doesn’t have time to go and find Yasha.

She kind of sort of wants to, to apologize, and maybe in the heat of the moment…

She goes to bed.

They’re up early to meet with representatives of the Myriad, and getting fucked by Jester had assuaged some, but not all of Beau’s pent up energy. So she’s a little bit on edge when they meet the half-dozen men in a sewer (definitely not _her_ choice of meeting place). Certainly not the most on edge she’s ever been, and in any case, Kara’s the one with the charisma, so she’ll be the one doing most of the talking. Beau’s just there because she’s the boss.

That’s the good thing about having good people; you don’t always have to be there to tell them what to do.

‘You know,’ a voice says, coming out of the darkness. ‘When I heard that the Lady of Kamordah was coming to Nicodranas, I didn’t think she’d be so stupid as to show up to a meeting without back-up.’ Kara looks a tiny bit affronted at that remark, but Beau’s the only one that notices.

There are about six of them, which is...well, it’s not great, but Beau’s fought six guys before. The Myriad rely on numbers, rather than any set of special skills. Even still, they’d be stupid if they didn’t at least try to negotiate.

‘Gentlemen,’ Kara says, smoothly. ‘I’m sure we can come to some sort of arrangement.’ And that’s when Beau stabs the first guy through the heart.

She had figured that it would go to shit. She had also figured that she might have gotten a single word in before she had to murder someone.

The first one drops like an overripe grape, and that’s when everyone else kicks into action. Kara already has her sword drawn, and manages to kebab two of the goons through the shoulder. That still leaves three of them, and Beau takes a long slice to the chest and a headbutt to the face before they’re down to one guy before them on his knees.

He sneers. ‘Kill me, I don’t care. What do you think you’ve achieved by killing six of us? There’s another dozen members throughout the city.’

‘Oh, I know,’ Beau says. They’d done their research. ‘I’m just the distraction.’ She slices her blade across his throat with nary a thought.

Somewhere out there, in the city proper, Yasha and a dozen or so of Beau’s people are storming the Myriad safehouse. The Zolezzo have been paid off, and they will have Nicodranas by sundown.

Not bad for a day’s work.

…

Beau returns to the Chateau, both bleeding and covered in blood. She does her best to avoid the sight of Blude, the minotaur. As nice as sex would be right now, her mind is too focused on all the shit she has to do next. Clearing out the mainstays of the Myriad had only been the first step. Next, they’ve got to establish themselves, which means sticking around for at least a while longer.

Beau had left Eritol in charge back in Kamordah. He’ll be okay on his own for at least a while longer. The place is a veritable fortress, thanks to the number of guards they have there, and the number of Crownsguard that are paid to look the other way.

She finds Yasha at the bar, greataxe still covered in blood, and a tankard of ale in her hand. For some mysterious reason, all of the other patrons are giving her a wide berth.

‘You’re injured,’ Yasha says, when Beau sits down next to her. It’s not a question. Beau still hasn’t changed out of her bloodstained shirt, the slice in it opens wider with every step she takes.

‘It’s not bad,’ Beau says, dismissively. Yasha herself is covered in blood, though Beau is pretty sure none of it’s hers.

Yasha reaches over, and puts a hand to Beau’s shoulder. There’s a brief moment of warmth, and some of the cuts start to close up.

‘Thanks,’ Beau says, appreciatively. She flags the bartender down to get her own drink. There’s a pause, and also an elephant in the room that needs to be dealt with.

‘Sorry you had to...you know, see that,’ Beau says, and the apology is just as awkward as she had imagined. ‘Y’know...last night.’

‘It’s okay,’ Yasha says, after her own pause. ‘I’m sorry I burst in.’ A pause. ‘I didn’t realize that you were...into that.’ These words, Beau almost laughs at, because it’s not as though she’s subtle about any of her endeavors. Yasha is just...on her own wavelength sometimes.

‘Um...’ Beau says. _Are you into that_? she wants to ask, but decides that it’s probably a very bad idea. ‘Well, you know...’ She trails off. _So fucking smooth_. ‘It’s...cathartic?’ she says, which in no way fully describes the kind of release that she gets from letting someone manhandle (womanhandle?) her into an orgasm. It’s weird. ‘I mean...we’re in a brothel.’ Sort of. Beau wonders if Jester is the only consort that actually works out of the _Chateau_. She’s the only one that Beau’s seen, but she hasn’t exactly asked about it, either.

‘It looked cathartic,’ Yasha says, in her deadpan sort of tone. Beau’s not entirely sure that Yasha’s not making fun of her. She’s not even sure what it sounds like. The words sort of linger in the air for a moment.

‘Anyway,’ Beau says. ‘Goodnight.’ She waits for Yasha to say something – anything – but Yasha doesn’t. She just gives a tiny sort of nod of the head, and lets Beau leaves the bar.

_Ah well._ It’s not as though it’s the first time that people have been weirded out by her...proclivities. Usually they have the decency to call her a freak, and then never speak to her again, though. The only thing Yasha manages to do is blush whenever she sees Beau.

‘You’re a fucking idiot,’ Kara tells her, the next evening. The insult is undercut a little bit by the fact that she’s got her arms hanging over Beau’s thighs, and her face is still wet. Jester, had, unfortunately, been booked out. Apparently her willingness to cancel appointments had only been for the first evening.

Beau frowns. ‘I mean, yeah, but...why specifically in this instance?’

‘Yasha’s not creeped out, she’s jealous.’

‘I—what?’ Beau says. She admits, this revelation has her momentarily speechless. Yasha, who had never so much as winked in Beau’s direction, jealous? Unlikely.

‘She likes you. Why do you think she’s always giving me the evil eye?’

‘Because you’re a smarmy pain in the ass,’ Beau mutters. She’s still filled with pent-up energy that the night with Jester, and three rounds of cunnilingus from Kara haven’t quite managed to expel.

There’s one thing she needs right now.

‘Hey, can you _Send_ Avantika a message for me?’ Beau asks. Kara raises an eyebrow. She’s not an idiot. She knows exactly what goes on in the bowels of Avantika’s ship.

‘You know, you don’t have to punish yourself for what happened,’ the bard says, shrewdly. ‘Things went down exactly how we planned them to.’

Beau gives a small shrug. She’s not sure she’s looking to punish herself, but...well, if she gets more than one benefit from the encounter, then that’s fine by her. ‘I just need...I just need it, okay. Just let her know I’m in Nicodranas, if she’s close to port.’

Kara shakes her head. ‘Alright, suit yourself. You know I don’t trust her.’

Beau’s not entirely sure if _she_ trusts Avantika either, but the Captain is pretty godsdamned charismatic, and she’s, to put it lightly, a wild fuck.

Kara closes her eyes for a few moments, and sends the message.

‘Tomorrow night, eight o’clock, on the docks,’ she says, after a couple of minutes. Then, in an almost disgusted tone of voice. ‘Wear the...stuff.’ Beau doesn’t blame Kara for being embarrassed. She’s not entirely sure that a booty call is an appropriate use of her enforcer’s spells. It would be so much easier if she’d just run away to wizard school.

But then, she supposes, she wouldn’t be here at all.

So she goes to the docks the next night, and finds the _Squall-Eater_ moored there. Avantika herself is standing at the gang plank, hat angled down over one eye, and looking sexily mysterious.

They greet each other with a handshake, as though what’s about to happen is merely a business transaction, and Avantika leads Beau below decks to her private chambers.

Half an hour later, Beau’s blindfolded, and her hands are cuffed to the chains hanging from the ceiling. It’s not the first time she’s been in the situation, and she’s not overly concerned. After all the fact that she’s naked, has a plug in her ass, and clamps on her nipples changes the tone of her predicament. The predicament, of course, being that she’s horny as fuck, and Avantika is fucking toying with her. Just like old times.

‘I have heard rumors,’ Avantika says, ‘That you have taken on a new...friend.’ She runs a finger along Beau’s dripping slit, circling her clit a few times. ‘I admit, the thought makes me a little bit jealous.’

‘Well, remember, I don’t have to ask you for permission before I start fucking other people,’ Beau says. ‘Just like you don’t ask me before you fuck your Quartermaster.’ Beau actually kind of likes Fjord, but more than once, they’ve done the awkward “meeting each other on the way to or from the captain’s quarters” nod in the hallways. Beau wonders if the Captain does this for him, too.

Avantika tugs on the clamps, and Beau clenches her fist in pain. Pain is the punishment for insolence, which means Beau gets a lot of pain, some days. She’s come from these sessions before on the verge of bleeding, after which Avantika has taken her to bed – actual bed – and rubbed ointment into the wounds. Avantika’s a lot of things, but a bad dom isn’t one of them. At least by Beau’s standards.

Once or twice Beau has come across a partner that’s ignored safe words, or aftercare, and she’d made a point of utterly ruining them before going on her way. Just because she’s getting fucked doesn’t mean she has to get fucked over.

‘You are being insolent, Beauregard,’ Avantika whispers in Beau’s ear, and Beau can’t help but shiver. She hadn’t realized that Avantika had been so close. ‘Do you remember how we punish insolence?’

‘Yes,’ Beau says. She grimaces slightly. That’s the worst part about being blindfolded. She can’t— _Whack._ The first strike of the switch hits her ass, jostling the plug a little bit. Beau can’t stop the slight scream that leaves her. Unlike the others, Avantika doesn’t give her a belt, or a gag, or any of those things. She likes to hear the screams.

After the first three hits, she slides her hand down Beau’s stomach, over her mons pubis, and into the slick of her folds. After the fifth hit, she slides two fingers inside, pumps them to a rhythm that’s a little bit faster than the rhythm of the switch. Beau can feel the orgasm rising inside her, but tries to hold it back. Avantika’s never explicitly punished her for coming too early, but Beau can see the disappointment in her eyes when it happens, and there’s always a little while longer between invitations when it does.

After ten hits, Avantika drops the switch, and it clatters to the ground. She undoes the cuffs, and the clamps, and lowers Beau to the bed that she’s been cuffed to. As much as she likes the whipping, and the teasing, the pirate queen always likes to end on a good solid fucking into the mattress. Part of it is so she can see the brand, and part of it because it’s a more visceral way of asserting her dominance.

She takes the blindfold off, because she wants her partners to see her face when they come.

Beau watches, silently, as Avantika adjusts the harness of her strap. It’s not small, but then Avantika usually goes big or goes home. She never goes home, so it’s always just big.

Beau’s pretty wet, but it’s big enough that there’s still a decent amount of pain as she gets stretched out.

‘Good?’ Avantika asks, and Beau barely manages to eke out a:

‘Yes.’

‘Good.’ Avantika keeps her hands squarely on Beau’s hips as she pulls out, and thrusts in again to the hilt. It jostles the plug, a little more than the switch had, and for a brief second before Avantika pulls out again, Beau feels so godsdamned full.

She wants to grab the other woman by the hips, to pull her in harder and faster, but she knows that will get her into trouble, so she simple grasps at the sheets, and lets herself get well and truly railed.

Then, all of a sudden, Avantika reaches down, and practically rips the plug out of Beau’s ass. She can’t help but let out a scream, which earns her a soft kiss to the forehead. The more she screams, the more Avantika seems to like it.

The strap is already pretty wet, but Avantika finds the small glass jar that she’s obviously had at the ready, and rubs the ointment over it. Since Beau’s had the plug in all night, the captain doesn’t bother much with her fingers. The strap slides smoothly into her ass, much bigger than anything she’s taken in a while.

‘You’ve been practicing,’ Avantika comments, and it’s maybe a little weird that she can tell exactly what Beau’s been doing with other people based on just how well her ass is stretching.

Beau doesn’t say anything, but gives a wry sort of smile. It earns her a couple of flicks against already sensitive nipples, as Avantika puts her hands on Beau’s breasts. The orb in her right hand is strangely warm against Beau’s skin. As she thrusts into Beau’s ass (hard and fast) she grips so tight that Beau knows she’s going to have bruises in the morning.

Beau comes with a scream that’s louder than the one she’d made two nights ago, with Jester, but there’s a spell on the door to stop anyone from hearing it. Beau vaguely wonders if she should suggest something like that to Jester.

‘You can wash up, if you like,’ Avantika says, as she unhooks her harness. Beau doesn’t even think that she’d come. The captain sounds a little distant, but then, she deals with a lot of things she doesn’t tell Beau about, the same way Beau doesn’t tell her everything. Something about an ancient evil under the ocean? Beau admits she hadn’t really been listening the first time it had come up, and it seems rude to ask now.

Beau dries the sweat and the slick off with a damp towel. She hadn’t bled this time, from the whipping, or from anything else. It’s always a pain in the ass (literally) when she has to deal with that, too.

When she’s done, she hesitates. ‘Do you want me to stay?’

‘If you like.’ Avantika sounds indifferent to the request, and Beau wonders if she has plans with the quartermaster. Deciding that’s something she _definitely_ doesn’t want to stick around for, Beau bids her farewell. Even despite the indifference, Avantika walks her back up to the deck.

‘Is it true,’ Avantika asks, as Beau’s about to step onto the gangplank. ‘That you are setting up shop in Nicodranas?’

Word travels fast, Beau thinks. She’s fully clothed now, so she supposes that it’s a safe enough time for business.

‘Sure,’ she says.

‘I had a great many contacts within the Myriad here. I would have appreciated your consultation.’ There’s a pause. Avantika’s pushing the boundary now, and she knows it. This isn’t the sort of thing you warn people about.

‘Well I guess you’ll have to make some new contacts,’ Beau says, wryly. The implication is clear. That Avantika will have to deal with what she’s got. ‘Trust me, any Myriad that sets foot in this town again will have to deal with my sword again.’

‘Is that why you wanted me to punish you?’ Avantika asks. Beau stares at her coldly. That’s definitely crossing a line.

Beau doesn’t answer.

‘Goodbye, Avantika,’ she says.


	4. Chapter Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter (reasonably tame):  
> Yasha/Jester  
> Cunnilingus  
> Dishonesty with the intent that it lead to other parties engaging in sexual activity.
> 
> As a note, just to give a little more detail regarding the darkness level of this, there is a specific turning point where the darkness will ramp up, and you will 100% know it when you see it, but I will pre-warn anyway.

Chapter Four

Yasha can’t find Beau.

It’s strange. She’d said goodnight after their brief (awkward) conversation in the bar, but her room is empty. Really, she should be celebrating their victory – or at the very least giving some sort of drunken toast – but she’s nowhere to be seen.

Yasha has not specifically been trying to avoid her, but she needs to figure out what she’s going to say the next time they do see each other, because otherwise, it’s going to keep being really weird.

Not because Yasha’s upset.

Well, that’s not true. She is a little upset, but not for the reasons that one might think.

After running out of the courtesan’s room the night before last, Yasha had retreated back to her own room, embarrassed, and...well, perhaps a little bit crestfallen.

Not that she blames Beau for taking advantage of their location. The Sapphire of the Sea is, after all, celebrated for her sexual prowess. Though she could maybe use a little sound-proofing on her doors.

It would be easy enough to wait, to go and find Beau in the morning, but if something’s wrong, then Yasha needs to know now. At the same time though, she doesn’t want a repeat of the last time she’d gotten too concerned over Beau’s wellbeing.

She goes to find Kara, hoping very much that she isn’t about to walk in on something else.

Kara is polishing her sword.

‘Have you seen Beau?’ Yasha asks, without so much as a greeting. She’s not very good at the small-talk stuff. She tries, but it always comes of as insincere.

‘She, uh...went out,’ Kara says with a shrug.

Yasha frowns. ‘Out? Out where?’

There’s a long pause. Kara has a silver tongue, lies roll off it so easily that Yasha’s sure she’s being obtuse on purpose. ‘Meeting someone.’

The tone of voice is such that Yasha knows immediately the sort of person Beau is meeting, and what she’s meeting them for. Had she been this ignorant for so long? How is it that _Kara_ knows, but she doesn’t? She’s supposed to be…

“Bodyguard” is the thing that she had been initially hired for, all those years ago when the circus had come to Kamordah. Since then, she’s morphed into something more of an enforcer. Someone that really should notice that her boss is wandering off to go fuck someone every night of the week.

‘You know, if you’re upset, you can really just go and talk to her about it,’ Kara continues. Yasha stares at her. ‘Once or twice, I’ve been going down on her, and she’s called out your name.’ Yasha can’t quite tell whether the other woman is lying or not.

She knows, for one thing, that she certainly isn’t going to talk to Beau about it. Not unless Beau brings it up first.

‘Well then find someone else to take your mind off things,’ Kara suggests. Her voice is almost irritable, and Yasha’s almost entirely sure it’s not an invitation. Even if it had been…She doesn’t mind Kara, but there’s a friction between them that would only be enhanced by a meaningless sexual encounter.

Not that Yasha’s ever _had_ a meaningless sexual encounter. In fact, the only encounters she’s _ever_ had had been with Zuala.

In the absence of anything else to do, Yasha goes back downstairs, and has another drink. The tiefling courtesan – the Sapphire – is playing the piano, a wide smile on her face. Yasha feels like she should be angry, should hate this woman, but she doesn’t.

The smile reminds her of Zuala, reminds her of the way that her wife had always had an infectious happiness, had always been able to make people – make Yasha – feel better. Now, she hasn’t had anyone to make her feel better (at least not in that way) for a long time.

So she watches, a little transfixed, as Jester plays a song that seems to revolve mostly around penises. It’s pretty catchy, if she’s being honest, and Yasha can’t quite help but tap her foot along to the beat.

When the songs are finished, and the Sapphire bids them farewell, and the crowd starts to disperse, Yasha makes her decision. She finishes her drink, and goes upstairs.

...

Jester has had clients every night this week, and she’s wondering if word of her skills is starting to spread.

They’re not the same skills that her momma had had, but she’s starting to come into her own, anyway.

‘ _...the Sapphire of the Sea is the best lay ever!_ ’ The song finishes in a resounding cheer from the assembled patrons. Jester grins, and bows, and they cheer again.

‘Thank-you everyone!’ she calls out. ‘Free ale to whoever’s the first to find the dick I drew on the piano!’

There’s a mad rush towards the stage, and Jester uses the commotion to head back upstairs.

She’s always a little tired after performing. She supposes momma must have been, too, but it’s a question that Jester had never thought to ask. Every now and then, Jester _Communes_ with the Moonweaver to make sure her momma is doing okay up there, and even though she might not be listening, Jester talks to her every night.

Tonight, she’s barely managed to shut the door, when there’s a knock on it. Thinking that it might be Beau, Jester turns the handle.

There’s a tall, intimidating presence in the doorway, and Jester’s heart skips a beat. She calls upon the Moonweaver, and readies her symbol.

Then, she recognizes the tall barbarian woman that had walked in on her and Beau. Or, more accurately, had walked in on her fucking Beau in the ass with a strap-on. If Jester remembers right, her name is Yasha.

‘Um, I’m sorry to interrupt,’ Yasha says, and Jester can’t help but do a double take. The voice is soft, and far more gentle than she had imagined. Like the soft fall of rain on a bed of flowers. Her hair is long, and braided messily. There’s a line of dried blood across her chin. Had she gotten into a fight today? ‘Are you free?’

Jester frowns. Free to talk?

‘I, um...wish to procure your services for the evening,’ she says, and that’s not how Jester had imagined the conversation to go. She’s also not quite sure how well it would work, logistically. Beau’s a little easier to control, because she’s only a few inches taller than Jester, but this woman is enormous. Like, muscles in places that Jester hadn’t even known it was possible to get muscles. Like, could throw Jester out a window without breaking a sweat.

For all that, though, she has wildflowers woven into her hair.

‘Of course,’ Jester says with a smile. She doesn’t mention that she’s finished work for the evening. ‘For one night, it’s….five gold.’ It’s usually twenty for one night (or a hundred if she thinks they can afford it), but the woman is _really_ pretty, and Jester does feel a little bad for forgetting to lock the door last time.

Yasha digs on her belt for a coin purse, and rummages around for five gold. Without a word, she hands it to Jester.

Jester puts on her work face, which, in all honesty, isn’t too different from her regular face. ‘Come in.’ Yasha steps inside.

‘What’s your name?’ Jester decides to start with that question this time, instead of waiting until she’s three fingers deep. She’d heard the name from Beau, of course, but it’s a polite question to ask.

‘Yasha,’ the woman says, and she gives a beautiful – nervous – smile.

‘That’s a beautiful name,’ Jester tells her, and the smile widens slightly. ‘What do you want to do, tonight, Yasha?’

‘Could we just...talk for a little bit?’ Yasha says, uncertainly.

‘Of course.’ Jester leads her into the room. ‘Would you like to sit on the bed, or on the chairs?’

Yasha hesitates. ‘The bed, she says, finally.’ They sit down cross-legged on the bed. Even sitting, Yasha is still at least a foot taller than Jester.

‘So,’ Jester claps her hands on her thighs. ‘Yasha, why are you here?’ Maybe it’s a little bit of a blunt question, but it’s far from the bluntest one she’s ever asked.

‘I...it’s difficult to say,’ Yasha says. She looks uncomfortable, and Jester remembers what her mother had taught her (not that her mother had ever expected her to be following in the family business). You have to make them feel comfortable. Like they want to be here. Like they want to come back. ‘I have not…since the death of my wife.’

‘I’m so sorry,’ Jester says, and she is. Yasha isn’t the first grieving widow (or widower) that’s come to her. She brushes the knots out of Yasha’s hair, and begins separating it into strands.

‘I loved her so much,’ Yasha continues. ‘And I think I will always love her, but...’ She hesitates. ‘I worry that I am beginning to fall in love with someone else.’

‘Oooh,’ Jester says. She can’t quite help herself. Surely that’s not the sort of thing that a well-respected, high-class courtesan would say. ‘Is it someone I know…?’ she asks, salaciously. Since there’s only one person that they share in common, it’s a bit of a loaded question.

‘I should not say,’ Yasha says, hesitantly, and for Jester that’s answer enough. Yasha is _totally_ in love with Beau. And, she knows for a fact that Beau really likes Yasha, too.

She pauses. Why does that bother her so much? Or maybe...should it bother her _more_? It’s all so confusing. She’s not sure how her mama had handled it, being able to separate sex from...from things that are more than sex.

Though, come to think of it, she doesn’t have this problem with any of her other clients.

‘May I….May I pleasure you?’ Yasha asks, after a moment’s silence, her voice ever so polite. In fact, Jester doesn’t think she’s ever been asked so politely.

‘Of course,’ Jester says, trying to make her voice sound like all those high class women that used to come watch her mama perform. The clientele at the _Chateau_ is a little rowdier, now, because the only songs that Jester can play on the piano are sailor shanties.

Yasha crawls down the bed a little, and lifts Jester’s skirts up until they’re over Jester’s head, and Jester has to flatten them out so she can watch. She always likes this part. She likes sitting one peoples’ faces, for sure, but she likes it this way, too.

For such a giant, Yasha’s incredibly gentle. She smooths her hands up Jester’s legs, and hooks her thumbs underneath the waistband of the lace panties. Jester finds the lace itchy against her skin, but she thinks it’s the sort of thing that she should wear, so she wears it.

‘Oh, Jester,’ Yasha says, and she says it with reverence, as though she’s looking at a beautiful piece of art, rather than Jester’s body. ‘You are so...blue.’

Jester laughs. It’s true, the blue is a little darker down there than it is everywhere else.

Where as Beau had lapped at her like she would never see a pussy again, Yasha is slow. Methodical. She clearly has experience in the art of pleasuring women, but probably only the one woman, who maybe languished a little at the long, drawn-out lick of the tongue from top to bottom. When she finally got around to letting her lips wrap around Jester’s clit, the tiefling is keening for more.

‘Yasha, please,’ she says.

Yasha stopped, suddenly. ‘Is this not okay?’ she ask. She sounded almost hurt, as though she had trying so hard to please…

‘ _Faster_ ,’ Jester says, and Yasha’s mouth curls into an “oh” of understanding. The barbarian grips her hands around Jester’s thighs, and goes down once more into the breach.

…

After they’re finished, Yasha stays for a while. She’s clearly a little reluctant about asking to do so, but Jester finds that she’s thoroughly enjoying the other woman’s company, at least as much as she had enjoyed Beau’s. It’s something that Jester has come to like about having clients; the way some them are able to bare their souls in a way they never would to anyone else.

‘You know, you should tell her you like her,’ Jester says, even though it maybe pains her a little to do it. ‘She likes you, too, you know.’

Yasha’s head shoots up at that. ‘She does?’

‘Oh, yeah,’ Jester lies. She’s _pretty_ sure Beau likes Yasha, but it hasn’t really come up in conversation. ‘She talks about you, like...all the time. Wants you to tie her up, and fuck her really hard.’ Okay, maybe that last part is a bit much; Yasha’s full body blush deepens, and Jester can’t help but stare at her breasts. Gods, they’re beautiful. The skin is an unearthly pale, and there are no blemishes or pockmarks. Yasha doesn’t look entirely human, but Jester’s not sure what she is.

She broaches the subject carefully. ‘What are you?’

Yasha stares at her, a little startled. ‘I’m sorry?’

‘Like...I’m a tiefling, so I can sort of sense sometimes when people...you know...’ Have celestial origins. It’s not _entirely_ true, but it’s not false, either. She can definitely sense that Yasha isn’t human.

‘I am...uh...or I was, an aasimar,’ Yasha says. ‘I do not know what I am, now.’

‘An angel,’ Jester says, smiling. She runs a hand along Yasha’s cheek, and Yasha smiles nervously.

‘You are kind to say. But...I have not been...I have been too cruel, too monstrous to be an angel for some time.’ Her right hand twitches, and she glances back over to the greataxe. Jester can see that there is still some blood on the bit. ‘I have killed a great many people.’

‘Did they deserve it?’ Jester asks, and Yasha hesitates.

‘I think so.’

‘Then I think it’s okay,’ Jester says with a shrug. ‘There are lots of bad people out there.’

When she leaves, Yasha doesn’t look entirely convinced.

…

As she returns to her room, Yasha meets Beau coming up the stairs.

‘Oh, hey,’ Beau says, with a smile. She looks relaxed – more relaxed than she had a few hours ago – and Yasha wonders exactly who it is she’d been sleeping with. Not to mention, what they’d done.

She had thought that sleeping with the courtesan – with Jester – would ground her, would give her some strength to do the things that she wants to do, but now she’s less sure than ever. It hadn’t helped, of course, that Jester had been so sweet, so understanding.

Yasha takes a breath. ‘Can we talk?’

Beau’s expression changes, suddenly. She straightens slightly, and looks a little wary. ‘It’s nothing bad,’ Yasha promises her. ‘But...can we do it in private?’

Seemingly not reassured, Beau leads Yasha into her own room. She sets her waistcoat down on the chair, next to the sword belt. The sword belt, Yasha realizes, that she hadn’t taken with her, to...wherever it was that she’d been.

‘What’s up?’ Beau asks. She’s trying to sound casual, Yasha knows, and the longer she waits, the harder it’s going to be to do anything. So Yasha decides that she’s not going to think about it at all. She steps forward, and leans down towards Beau.

Beau is pretty quick on the uptake, and grabs the back of Yasha’s head, pulling her down. The kiss lasts almost thirty seconds, at which point Yasha has to pull away to breathe.

‘Holy shit, Yash,’ Beau says, and she too sounds a little breathless. ‘Where did that come from?’

‘Jester said that you wanted to do this with me,’ Yasha admits.

Beau pulls away, and for a split second, Yasha worries that she’s done something wrong.

‘Jester said _what?_ ’


	5. Chapter Five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter:  
> Beau/Yasha  
> Beau/Yasha/Jester  
> Cunnilingus  
> Voyeurism  
> Blindfolds  
> Biting  
> Strap-on  
> Fingering  
> Face-sitting  
> Just...lots of sex

Chapter Five

There’s a long moment of awkward silence.

‘You...’ Yasha says. She sounds hurt. ‘You didn’t tell Jester you wanted to sleep with me?’

‘I—’ Beau can’t deny that she wants to bang Yasha like she wants to do nothing else, but she absolutely doesn’t want this start this on a lie. ‘I didn’t,’ she says, and it’s the hardest fucking thing she’s ever had to say. Vaguely, she wonders exactly when and how Jester had told Yasha this; it strikes her that Yasha must have gone to Jester for companionship. That’s hardly the important thing right now, though, even if the thought of it is really fucking hot.

Yasha pulls away, horrified. ‘Oh gods, Beau, I’m so sorry.’ She practically runs to the door.

‘Wait—’ Beau says. ‘Wait.’ Beau’s faster than Yasha, and just manages to get to the door before her. ‘I didn’t...How about we go and clear this up with Jester, yeah?’

How the hell is she going to clear this one up? No, I didn’t tell Jester that I wanted to fuck you, but now that you mention it, yeah, let’s get to it. It seems a little crass.

Yasha pauses. ‘Yes,’ she says, eventually. Beau has no fucking idea what she’s thinking. She generally considers herself a pretty insightful person, and most of the time, she has no fucking idea what Yasha is thinking. Now is no exception. ‘Yes, let’s go talk to Jester.’ She pushes past Beau, out the door.

After a moment’s hesitation, Beau grabs her sword belt, and follows.

...

There’s a knock on the door. It’s well outside of Jester’s usual entertaining hours, but she’s never one to let a knock go unanswered. Especially not if it means more money.

Beau’s standing there. She doesn’t look impressed. Yasha’s standing behind her. She looks even less impressed.

_Whoops_ .

‘Can we come in?’ Beau asks, and doesn’t really wait for an answer. She steps inside, and Yasha follows.

‘So...’ Jester says.

‘You told Yasha I wanted her to fuck me senseless,’ Beau says. It’s not a question. They’re also not the exact words that Jester had used, but she’s not really in a position to be splitting hairs. Not when she’s probably about to get stabbed.

Jester looks from Yasha to Beau, and puts on her best “innocent” face. ‘I’m sorry – I just thought you guys would be really cute together, and neither of you were going to make a move on your own.’

‘You didn’t think that such an obvious lie might come back to bite you?’ Beau sounds angry, and Jester can’t help but be a little bit afraid. The other woman is fingering the sword at her belt, and Jester stares at it. _Surely Beau wouldn’t..._ But then, someone had mur—killed all of those Myriad guys. And Beau had said it herself, she’s not a nice person.

‘Is it true, though?’

‘It doesn’t matter if it’s true,’ she says, angrily. ‘You’re confusing Yasha, because she’s so fucking nice, she believes everything people say.’

‘I mean, I’m not stupid,’ Yasha says her voice more than a little defensive. It’s the first thing she’s said since coming into the room.

Beau sighs, and puts a hand on her shoulder. ‘I’m sorry, Yasha, I didn’t mean it like that.’

‘No, I know what you mean,’ Yasha says, but she sounds hurt, and Beau looks a little ashamed.

‘I mean...was I wrong?’ 

The question hangs in the air.

…

‘I mean...was I wrong?’ Jester asks, and Beau doesn’t answer straight away.

_That’s not the point_ , she wants to say. Whether she has a huge fucking crush on Yasha or not, it’s not really appropriate for Jester to go around blurting it out. Or to try arranging a godsdamned threesome. ‘I—’ she says, looking at Yasha, a sudden wave of anxiety rushing through her.  _What if Yasha says_ no? ‘Of course not,’ she says irritably, running a hand through her hair. 

Yasha’s whole demeanor changes, and Beau wonders if she had thought that Jester had been lying about everything. Shit, maybe  _she’s_ the one that’s confusing Yasha.

‘Just...’ she continues. ‘Don’t go around lying about what people are saying. Especially when it involves sex. Let people...do their thing in their own time.’

‘If I did that, you guys would _never_ fuck,’ Jester says.

‘I’ve been fucking _trying_ ,’ Beau says. Yasha frowns.

‘What? When?’

Beau stares at her. Is she  _kidding_ ? There’s rarely a conversation that they have where Beau  _isn’t_ trying to flirt.

‘Like, asking to borrow your shawl, staring at you in the baths...’

‘I just thought you were cold,’ Yasha says, and, to her credit, she looks a little embarrassed. Embarrassment seems to be a fucking running theme between the two of them. There’s a pause. ‘You really want me to fuck you?’

‘Well...maybe not so crassly.’ Beau shrugs. She’s not quite at the point of admitting how fucking hot it would be for Yasha to be the one tying her up, to be whipping her senseless. 

Holy shit though, if she’d know that all it would take to get Yasha into her was to have sex in front of her, then Beau would have done it a long fucking time ago.

It’s as though all the tension in the air between them suddenly disappears. In an instant, Yasha has pressed Beau up against the wall, and is kissing her as though it’s the only way forward.

Yasha rips away Beau’s chest bindings with a single, hard pull, leaving Beau half-naked in front of her.

Jester seems to hesitate. ‘Do you want me to leave, or to stay?’

‘Stay,’ Yasha and Beau say, at the same time, and then each looks a little surprised that the other had said it. In fact, Beau’s not even entirely sure _why_ she had said it. She likes Jester – even if the tiefling had crossed a pretty major line – but this is something so…intimate.

But, if Yasha wants her to stay, then Beau wants Yasha to feel comfortable.

Gently, Beau leads Yasha towards the bed and gestures for her to sit. It’s probably the most dominant thing she’s done in a long time. It’s not that she doesn’t like it, or can’t do it. It’s just somehow the path that she’s found herself on.

Beau kneels between Yasha’s legs, for the first time in her life, hesitant. She undoes the laces at the side of Yasha’s pants, and wrestles them off. She’s surprised to find that Yasha doesn’t wear (or at least isn’t currently wearing) any smallclothes. Her curls are dark, and judging by the sheen, she’s already wet.

Had their conversation been enough to get her turned on, or is this a recent development?

With Jester it had been different, not least of all because technically Beau had been paying for her services. There’s not as much at stake if you don’t have a good time with someone you’ve just met. Yasha, though. Yasha, who Beau has been lusting after since the day they’d met, who has seen Beau in some of her darkest moments. If she fucks this up, she’s lost one of her closest confidants. It’s a big risk, both personal and professional.

It’s a completely different atmosphere than the one between Beau and Avantika in the bowels of the  _Squall-Eater_ . Much brighter, much friendlier, much more intimate. Not that Beau necessarily dislikes Avantika in a non-sexual capacity, but there’s a directness to their interactions that doesn’t really lend itself to friendship.

Beau leans in, and inhales Yasha’s scent. It’s tangy and salty, and Yasha shudders with her whole fucking body when Beau’s tongue hits her. She winds her fingers through Beau’s hair, pressing down on her scalp, and yeah, Beau definitely wants to feel that again, every day for the rest of her life.

Yasha pushes her down, and for a moment all that Beau is aware of is is that rich, moist warmth. It’s like coming home.

‘This is so hot,’ Jester murmurs, from across the room, where Beau imagines she’s just sitting and watching, maybe with her hand slipped down under her panties.

As tempting as it is, Beau doesn’t look up. She latches her teeth onto Yasha’s clit, and nips, and licks, and sucks. Even before she brings her hand in to help along, Yasha’s body is arching backwards, as she murmurs encouragement. ‘Just like that, Beau.’ Beau’s kind of amused by the fact that – even like this – Yasha has managed to sound so deadpan. Less deadpan is the way her body shakes, and she lets out half a scream.

Beau is absolutely soaking through her pants, but doesn’t move, because Yasha still has a death grip on her hair. Finally, Yasha lets go, and pulls Beau up onto the bed. Beau doesn’t resist.

Together, they manage to get Beau’s pants off, though there’s a moment or two where they get frustratingly caught on her feet. Yasha freezes when she sees what’s underneath them, and too late Beau remembers the two or so hours she’d spent getting utterly destroyed by Avantika earlier that evening.

‘You...asked for this?’ Yasha asks, running a hand over the wounds. Though they had not bled, they’re still sensitive, and, Beau imagines, pretty red. She’s also pretty sure that there are other things down there that still look pretty ruined. Avantika had done a pretty thorough job.

‘Yeah,’ Beau says into the pillow she’s now resting her head on. ‘It’s just...I dunno. Like a release, I guess. Having people...do things to me.’ It’s an awkward thing to explain, how she feels. Like, how she feels like she has a certain amount of control in being able to let people take the control away from her. It makes no fucking sense, so usually she doesn’t bother explaining at all.

‘Do you…do you want us to do that now?’ Yasha sounds a little worried, and Beau decides to placate her.

‘Nah, I don’t need it all the time. Whatever you’re comfortable with is fine by me.’

Yasha’s fingers ghost over the wounds again.

‘I have cream for that,’ Jester says, brightly. Her voice is right next to Beau’s ear. Beau hadn’t even noticed her coming over from her chair. ‘If you _want_ , Yasha and I could rub it in together. Or...just Yasha could do it, and I could eat you out, or...’ Beau’s not entirely sure how that one would work logistically, and, more to the point, she’s not sure whether or not they’re paying for Jester’s time.

‘Are we paying for this?’ she asks, eyebrows narrowed. Better to ask outright, than to beat around the bush.

‘Oh,’ Jester says, as though she hadn’t even considered it. ‘No, this one’s on the house. I mean, don’t tell anyone, but I kind of really like fucking both of you.’

Beau snorts. She looks upwards, and spies the amused look on Yasha’s face.

‘Hey, Yash.’ Beau grins. ‘I’ve got an idea.’

…

It’s not often that Beau gets to be the one in the harness, unless it’s someone’s way of pleasuring themselves while withholding pleasure from her, which, admittedly, does happen a fair bit. Jester is super fucking wet, and, she imagines that there’s probably a look of agonizing joy on her face, but she can’t quite tell, because Yasha’s ass is in the way.

Yasha’s just far enough away that Beau can’t quite reach her, sitting on top of Jester’s face while the tiefling does what Beau assumes are very dirty things with her tongue.

It’s maybe sort of punishment for lying, but then, it’s definitely far tamer than the usual sorts of punishment Beau has seen (and had) dished out. Jester, for her part, seems to be having a great time. She had practically  _trilled_ at Beau’s suggestion. Her deep blue skin pales where Beau’s thumbs are hooking into her hips, and she doesn’t even mind that Beau’s a little rusty – her rhythm a little off, her thrusts not quite as deep as they could be.

Jester’s screams are muffled by the aasimar that’s sitting on her face, but Beau can tell from the way her body moves that she’s close. So she bends down in what, quite frankly is an impressive acrobatic feat, and takes Jester’s clit between her teeth. She’s sure she’ll get reprimanded for that later.

Still, Jester doesn’t tap out, doesn’t use the safe word (Cinnamon), and comes with a messy scream half a second later.

Yasha takes another minute or so to come, and when she does, it’s with a nother whole body shake, and a  moan .

She rolls over, panting, and lies down next to Jester. Not even bothering to take off the strap, Beau crawls up to join them.

‘You didn’t come yet,’ Yasha says, frowning. Beau shrugs it off. She’s already come a couple of times today, so anything else is just icing on the cake. ‘And we never put that cream on.’

Beau had, admittedly, forgotten about the wounds on her ass. Not least of all because she’s still bursting with adrenaline. In any case, it’s more of a post-coital thing. Because apparently neither Yasha nor Jester are going to let her get away with not receiving something tonight.

So, at Jester’s instruction, Beau kneels on the bed, and  Jester wraps the blindfold around her eyes, careful not to catch her hair. ‘Is this okay?’ she asks.

‘Yes,’ Beau says, clearly. She knows that this is the sort of situation where her distinct, unambiguous consent is important. For Yasha’s sake more than for Jester’s.

Her hands are interlocked behind her neck, and the wrists bound to keep them there. It puts her breasts fully on display, which Jester seems to waste no time in taking advantage of.  Sharp tiefling teeth are latched onto the skin surrounding her nipples, as she leaves (Beau imagines) a multitude of tiny bite marks.

Yasha is exploring with her hands and her mouth. She’s sitting behind Beau, her breasts pressed into Beau’s back, and her legs wrapped around, entwining with Jester’s. She kisses the spot where neck meets shoulder, just beneath where Beau’s hands are secured. The fingers of one hand are down, past Jester, lazily making their way down through slick wet folds.

In a way, it reminds Beau of some of the things that Dairon had once done, before Beau had parted ways with the monastery. The elf’s ministrations had been Beau’s first foray into...alternative sexual practices, though she doubts that Dairon would necessarily be pleased with how far Beau has taken it.

This, though. This is nice. There’s no pain, no punishment (not that she’s ashamed of wanting the punishment), no expectations...just...Jester’s hands in her hair, and Yasha’s fingers slowly rubbing her clit.

When she comes, it’s slow, and soft, and her moans are caught by two sets of lips.

After, they both rub the cream into the smarting wounds, and Beau doesn’t even both to get up before falling asleep in a courtesan’s bed, next to two beautiful women.

All things considered, a pretty good end to the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You may notice that I'm not updating this as frequently as I've updated other things in the past. I really have to be in the mood to be writing smut, and since this story is like...80 percent smut, it means I have to intersperse it with writing other things. Things are still light and fluffy for now, but will be getting darker soonish.


	6. Chapter Six

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this Chapter:  
> Fluff  
> Minor Beau/Jester  
> Mentions of torture  
> Mentions of character death

Chapter Six

The next morning, Jester rises with the sun.

It’s an overcast sort of morning, and the rain dripping from the eaves tells her there had been a storm sometime before dawn. Already, though, the light is starting to pierce through the clouds.

It’s one good thing about being a ~ _Lady of the Night_ ~; her mornings are generally pretty free, and she tends to fill them by practicing her painting, and talking to the Moonweaver, and taking peaceful strolls along the beach (albeit while under a _Disguise Self_ spell).

Today, though, she’s not alone. She had gone to bed with two gorgeous women who she’d thought were going to kill her. She gives a slight double take. There’s only one other person in the bed.

Beau is still fast asleep, and Jester imagines she will be for sometime. Yasha is missing. Jester isn’t entirely surprised; she’d imagined that Yasha wouldn’t be the sort of person that would stay the night through, even if she’d been in the bed when Jester had fallen asleep.

Then, Jester realizes that the door to the balcony is open, and there’s a tall figure standing there, looking out over Nicodranas and the Lucidian Ocean.

Yasha is fully dressed in leathers and boots, and she just so happens to have an enormous pair of skeletal black wings sticking out of her shoulder blades.

She starts slightly when Jester comes to stand next to her.

‘I’m sorry,’ Jester says. ‘I didn’t mean to frighten you.’

Yasha smiles. ‘You didn’t frighten me,’ she says. ‘I was watching the storm.’ She gestures off into the distance, where another storm is brewing over the ocean. Sometimes they come in to shore, and sometimes they peter out before they get here. This one is a ways off, so if it does come, it’ll be a while.

‘Do you like storms?’ Jester asks.

‘You may have heard the name they call me,’ Yasha says. ‘The Herald of the Storm.’ Jester has heard that name before, usually amidst tales of blood and death, going back almost a century. She’d never expected the Herald of the Storm to be so...gentle.

‘How did—’ Jester starts, and, too late, she wonders if it’s impolite to ask how Yasha had gone from being a fearsome warlord to the bodyguard of a crime boss.

Yasha’s face drops a little. ‘In truth,’ she says, ‘I do not know the full story. There is a large gap in my memory that I have no knowledge of. A time where I know I did terrible things. That which I do have memory of...those things were just as terrible. The last thing that I remembered was going into a rage after my wife was killed, and slaughtering hundreds...’

There’s a long pause.

‘A man named Mollymauk found me at the altar of the Stormlord. He was on the run from something himself, and like me, he had very few memories of his past. We joined a circus together, and traveled around for some time, eventually coming to Kamordah. Molly had heard of the wine there, and wanted to try it.’

‘That’s where you met Beau,’ Jester says. It’s not a question. Yasha nods.

‘She had just—’ Yasha cuts herself off, as though she had been about to say something she shouldn’t. ‘Her parents had just died, and she had taken over the winery. She needed trustworthy people to help her run it. She paid a lot better than the circus did.’ Try as she might, Jester can’t imagine this behemoth of a woman as a member of a traveling circus.

‘Then…’ Yasha pauses. ‘Two year ago, now, we were traveling north to Shady Creek Run. We were ambushed by a group of slave traffickers called the Iron Shepherds. Molly was killed. Beau and I...’ She trails off. There’s clearly another story there, but apparently not one that Yasha is quite ready to tell. ‘We have been very close ever since. But I didn’t dare hope that she was...interested.’

Jester almost makes a comment about how she’d been glad to help, but thinks that might get her in trouble. It _definitely_ would have gotten her into trouble with Beau.

‘Are you hungry?’ Yasha asks Jester. ‘I will go downstairs and get us some breakfast.’

They wander back inside, Yasha making her way downstairs to the kitchens. Jester looks over at Beau, who is still sound asleep, and half tangled in blankets. At this angle, she almost looks like she’s staring out the window.

Struck by a moment of inspiration, Jester runs to find her sketchbook. She has to rush to hide it behind her back when Beau stretches and wakes.

‘Morning,’ Beau murmurs, but makes no move to get out of bed. She’s kind of just lazily gazing out the window, to where the morning light is just starting to creep in. The room faces west, which means they don’t actually get to see the sunrise, but there are some spectacular sunsets.

‘Good morning,’ Jester says. She sits carefully on the edge of the sofa, and starts to draw. It’s the best work Jester’s ever done, she thinks. Beau’s well-maintained body lends itself to the bold lines and deep shadows of the charcoal.

‘Are you drawing me?’ Beau’s voice snaps Jester back to reality, and she hastens to rub out the line of charcoal that she’s just smeared across the page.

‘No,’ Jester says, and Beau sees straight through the lie.

‘Just make sure you get my good side, yeah?’ Beau says, and Jester has to stop herself from retorting that there’s not exactly a bad side to get, but decides it’s a little too mushy for this time of morning. ‘Where’s Yash?’ There’s a strange sound in her voice that Jester can’t quite place. Fear? As though Yasha had run off somewhere in the night.

‘Getting breakfast,’ Jester says, and Beau seems to relax a bit. Even still, though, now that she knows Jester is drawing her, she looks over ever few minutes, and the air of freedom that Jester had been trying to capture is lost. She tries to draw on her own memory, of the way Beau’s shoulders had relaxed, of the way her hair had fallen across her face, the way her breasts seem to glow in the early morning light.

Jester’s more than a little smitten. Then, she remembers Yasha, with her snow-driven skin, and gorgeous hair, and soft skin covering thick muscle, and maybe she’s a little smitten with Yasha, too. In fact, she’s kind of jealous of the fact that they’ll get to be with each other while she has to...keep doing what she’s doing.

She wonders if this is how her momma must have felt; a little sad and lonely sometimes, from all the people she could never be with.

Yasha returns with what seems like an entire breakfast spread; eggs, and bacon, and fruits, and a multitude of pastries. Beau doesn’t bother to put her clothes on before wandering over to pick at the bacon.

‘I could get used to this,’ she comments. After she’s finished with the bacon, she attacks the grapes.

Yasha seems confused. ‘You have any number of servants that would quite happily serve you breakfast in Kamordah.’ Beau gives a whole body sort of shrug. She’s not just talking about breakfast, Jester realizes. For some reason, that revelation lights a spark of hope in her heart.

For all that, though, the morning passes quickly. Beau and Yasha have things to do; a consequence, Jester thinks, of having freed Nicodranas from the sway of the Myriad. If they don’t move quickly, the power vacuum will be filled by something else.

Jester’s filled with an unfamiliar sort of melancholy as she goes about her morning routine. It’s such that even Blude seems to notice, as he sets up the bar for their evening business.

‘Everything okay, Miss Jester?’ Jester, who’d been playing the piano, sighs dramatically.

It’s true, her rendition of _Show Us Your Pussy_ isn’t as rousing as it usually is. Usually, of course, she has a full bar of patrons singing along, that cheer uproariously when she lifts up her skirts at the end.

‘I guess,’ she says, in a far moodier voice than usual.

‘Rough client?’ he asks. There’s an edge of quiet steel to his voice, as though he’d go and deal with anyone who had given her trouble.

‘No,’ Jester shakes her head. ‘Just...other stuff. Blude, how do you know if you’re in love?’

The question clearly isn’t the one that he’d been expecting, because he takes a long time to answer it. ‘I think, Miss Jester, that that is something that’s different for every person. Your love is not the same as my love. But...’ He trails off. ‘If you think you’re in love, then you shouldn’t discount those feelings.’

Not entirely sure what he means, Jester goes back to the piano.

...

Over the next few months, Beau and Yasha are back and forth between Nicodranas and Kamordah, finalizing everything that needs to be finalized for setting up a branch of operations in Nicodranas. It means securing premises, and setting up a respectable business front, and hiring local fixers that know the playing field.

Jester keeps herself well away from that side of things, and Beau would not have told her if she’d asked. It seems unfair to drag an innocent into all of this, especially when it’s so precariously balanced. They’re not entirely in good with the Zolezzo yet, so any false step could end with Beau in a prison cell, or worse, at the wrong end of a noose.

If they’re both in town together, or if Beau’s on her own, Jester usually gets a nighttime visit. If Yasha goes on her own, though, then Beau’s never heard about it.

Somewhere along the line, Jester had stopped asking for money, but Beau brings it every time anyway. She doesn’t want to be the asshole that shirks their payment.

The sixth or seventh time she comes, she brings a gift.

‘I know it’s really weird for me to say thank-you to you for...you know, lying to the person I had a crush on, and everything, but...’ Beau trails off. ‘I got you something.’ She hands Jester the neatly wrapped box.

Jester looks elated, and there’s maybe another sort of look in her eyes, but it disappears quickly. They’re really pretty eyes, too, Beau realizes. She’s not sure why she’s never noticed it before; a bright, purplish-blue color. More purple than Beau’s blue, and more blue than Yasha’s purple.

‘Oh, holy shit!’ Jester says as she opens the jewelery box, and Beau grins. It’s really fucking adorable. ‘Thanks, Beau, these are so cool.’ She puts the diamond and sapphire earrings in. ‘This makes you like...my sugar momma.’

Beau looks suddenly horrified. Oh, shit. It _does_ kind of make her Jester’s sugar momma. Though she’s not sure how many sugar mommas spend as much time on the bottom as she does. In any case, she had made the earrings herself. It’s been a long time since she’d worked with silver, but she thinks they turned out okay anyway.

They fuck after that, though it’s gentle enough that Beau would almost err on the side of calling it “making love,” which she’s always thought has been such a tacky sort of phrase. Maybe, though, it’s because there’s never really been much love behind it.

When they’re done, Beau rests her head in Jester’s lap. She’s surprised how much she’s come to look forward to the talking part of their encounters. Jester is a sympathetic ear, and doesn’t judge all that much. Beau wonders how much of that is the Sapphire persona, and how much is Jester as she truly is. Some days, though, Beau’s pretty sure that the Sapphire and Jester are one and the same.

‘What happened,’ Jester asks, apropos of nothing, ‘On the way to Shady Creek Run, after Molly died.’

Beau freezes. She wonders how the fuck Jester knows about Molly. Yasha must have told her.

‘I’m sorry,’ Jester says, immediately. ‘I know that must be a really hard thing to talk about, but...’ She trails off. Sometimes they have to talk about the hard things.

It’s not a memory that Beau looks on fondly, but she’s surprised that it’s easier to talk about than she would have imagined.

‘The Iron Shepherds took us,’ Beau says with a shrug. ‘Tried to break us. The only reason we got out is because Ophelia Mardun hired some people to wipe out the Sour Nest. We were there almost two weeks.’ Beau lets Jester infer whatever she wants to infer from that statement. Beau doesn’t remember everything that had happened in the Sour Nest, and she doesn’t particularly want to. She has vague suspicions that Yasha _does_ remember, but has never felt the inclination to ask. Suffice to say that it was a good thing they’d been rescued when they had. That’s sort of maybe part of the reason why Beau makes her pilgrimage to Shady Creek Run every now and then. As thanks for saving her and Yasha’s life, and as penance for Beau failing to save Molly’s.

‘Hey Beau,’ Jester asks suddenly. Beau lifts her head slightly. ‘Is it weird…I mean, you and Yasha…Do you guys kind of maybe want to come around to fuck all the time, and then maybe do other things, too?’

Beau snorts with laughter. Not at the question, but at the way Jester had asked it. Jester takes her amusement for an answer. ‘Oh...I mean, that’s okay too.’ She sounds disappointed, and Beau hastens to correct her error.

‘I didn’t mean it like that, Jester. I just...’ Beau considers her words. ‘I kind of thought we sort of already were….doing that sort of thing.’

‘Oh!’ Jester says, her voice suddenly brighter. ‘Oh! Okay. That’s good.’ She frowns. ‘Does that mean I have to stop working at the _Chateau_?’ Beau can’t quite tell whether she sounds hesitant, or relieved.

‘You don’t have to do anything you want to do,’ Beau tells her. After all, it’s not exactly a conventional relationship, or anything. ‘I mean, we can….you know, keep doing what we’re doing – with each other and with other people – until we figure it out.’

It’s true that Beau hasn’t slept with anyone that wasn’t Jester or Yasha in months – even Kara has been a little bit put out by that – but that’s not to say she’ll never sleep with anyone else ever again. There’s an itch she has that the encounters at the _Lavish Chateau_ haven’t fully been able to scratch.

It’s time, she thinks, to make her way back up to Shady Creek Run.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Consider this the calm before the storm. If things work out, the darkness will more than likely kick into gear next chapter.


	7. Chapter Seven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay.
> 
> So.
> 
> This chapter warning will contain spoilers.
> 
> In this chapter:
> 
> Beau/Ophelia Mardun
> 
> Content Warnings: Breath play, mentions of auto-erotic asphyxiation, strangulation, restraints, gagging, face-sitting, with the aid of a phallus.
> 
> \- Trigger Warning: Consensual sexual encounter, which eventually turns non-consensual with regards to elements not pertaining to sex.
> 
> \- Trigger Warning: Non-sexual assault that contains sexual elements
> 
> \- Trigger Warning: Major character death (with eventual magical intervention that negates the permanency of said death).
> 
> I spent a bit of time mulling over these warnings, with some assistance, however there may be some things that I missed.

Chapter Seven

The north is dangerous, Beau knows.

Not least of all because of the Empire (to whom Beau has a tenuous relationship with) but because everything bad that’s ever happened to her has happened in the north.

She’s a little hesitant then, when she decides against Yasha’s company on the trip north. Kara, she takes, because Kara is a little more charismatic, a little less likely to make Ophelia Mardun feel jealous.

‘I would feel more comfortable if you’d let me come with you,’ Yasha says, in a low voice, as Beau finishes packing her back. She’s not sure why Yasha’s whispering, given that they’re alone in the bedroom.

‘I need you in Nicodranas,’ Beau says, which isn’t a lie. If she’s going north, that leaves the south unprotected, and while Kamordah is a veritable fortress, Nicodranas doesn’t have nearly the same level of protection yet. If someone goes after their operation – or goes after Jester – while she’s away, it won’t be pretty.

Well, the operation she could recover from, but Jester, who’s innocent in all of this...Well that would take a lot more penance.

The journey would normally take a couple of weeks, but thankfully, Kara knows the _Teleportation Circle_ in Shady Creek Run, so it takes all of six seconds to actually get there.

Ophelia Mardun is waiting for them.

She’s wearing her long, fancy coat with epaulettes, and has a sword at her hip. Beau’s seen her do more than one kind of thrusting.

Ophelia greets her with a kiss to the cheek, and a formal, ‘Ms Lionett. So wonderful to see you again.’ Beau can almost feel Kara rolling her eyes. Just as well Kara doesn’t know what Ophelia does with the horns sometimes.

They’re not staying in the house, which is a good thing, because Beau has the distinct impression if she spends the night here, something bad is going to happen. Generally, when they’re in town, they stay at the Landlocked Lady (which is still owned by the Marduns, but doesn’t quite have the same level of creepy as staying in the same bed).

So they take their things to the inn, and return in the afternoon to deal with business.

‘Do you have a bad feeling about this?’ Kara asks. Beau doesn’t really need to think about it.

‘Yes,’ she says.

‘Should we leave?’

It’s not as if they _can_ leave, seeing as how Kara can only do one _Teleportation Circle_ a day. If they’re going to stick around until tomorrow, then they might as well do the business, and just stay on guard.

Actual, proper business; no euphemisms.

‘No,’ Beau says. Kara shrugs, and keeps her hand at her sword for the rest of the afternoon.

Ophelia puts an order in for a few dozen kegs of the blood wine, plus some other orders that are a little more frowned upon by the denizens of the Empire.

That side of things takes less than an hour, after which Kara returns to the inn, apparently not wanting any part of what happens next.

Beau accepts the glass of wine that Ophelia offers her, and decides not to make a disparaging comment about the vintage. It’s not that it’s cheap, or from a bad wineyard, but she’s never really had a taste for the Rieslings. She’s sure that it’s a power play, for Ophelia to serve her someone else’s wine, but Beau isn’t going to bite.

She drinks four glasses of the stuff, after which point there’s no question as to where the evening is going.

The same way it always goes.

Ophelia takes her by the chin, examines her face as though examining a prize pony. Beau’s not sure what she’s looking for, but apparently she’s satisfied.

‘Upstairs,’ she says, and Beau follows her. When they reach the bedroom, it’s dark. Ophelia lights a pair of ominous looking candles.

‘Strip,’ she orders, and Beau hastens to obey. She takes off her waistcoat, and her button-down shirt, and her leather breeches. She sets her sword in the corner, and waits for her next order. Ophelia runs an appreciative hand across Beau’s abs.

It’s in front of people like Ophelia Mardun and Avantika, hell, even Jester and Yasha a little bit, where Beau sort of feels like she isn’t enough. That her body has the awkward angles and flattish chest of a twelve-year-old boy, and everything juts out in the wrong sort of way. Still, she’s pretty proud of the muscles that she has built up, though they’re the result of hard work, rather than genetics.

‘On the bed.’ Beau lies on the bed, and doesn’t wait to be told to put her wrists and ankles to the side. That’s generally how this goes.

Ophelia binds the rope around Beau’s wrists, and she isn’t particularly gentle about it. It’s a stark contrast compared to what Beau’s become used to over the past weeks; the soft touch of Yasha or Jester, and ropes made of silk, rather than rough hemp.

Beau almost complains, but she knows that will cause more harm than good. Not that she’s opposed to harm, necessarily. It’s just sort of nice to know that there are people in the world that want the best for her, even as they’re causing her pain.

‘Perfect,’ Ophelia says, in that sultry Zemnian tone. She slips two slate-grey fingers inside of Beau, pumping them gently – not to provide any sort of pleasure, but to remind Beau that she is very much not in control right now.

Not that she needs reminding. 

‘It’s so nice,’ Ophelia says, taking her fingers and running them from Beau’s slit, up past her navel and her breasts to her mouth. Beau’s wet enough that by the time it gets there, there’s still a little bit of moisture that hits her tongue. ‘To have such a willing hole at my disposal.’ It’s a metaphor more than anything, seeing as how Ophelia seems to use her as something other than a hole more often than not. The implication is clear, though; that she is an object to be used and thrown away.

The sad thing is, it’s not the worst way a sexual partner has demeaned her, and she’s filled with just enough self-loathing that she knows that it’s a bad situation for her to be in, knows that she should really just cut and run, and fuck the north, but she can’t.

And maybe that’s why it had been so important to take Nicodranas. Because who cares about the north when you’ve got the south?

So, maybe one day soon, but for now, she might as well enjoy it. Though she won’t quite go as far as to admit it out loud, the risk of it kind of makes it a little more interesting.

Ophelia selects a finely carved stone phallus from her collection. It’s a pretty big collection, and Beau’s probably got some base level of familiarity with most of them. This one is reasonably long, and has a bulbous sort of base. Beau’s breath catches in her throat.

She’s not so optimistic as to think that either end of the thing is going to go where she wants it to. Ophelia takes her index finger, and pulls Beau’s bottom lip down. ‘Open wide,’ she says, and slips the bulbous end into Beau’s mouth. It whacks her teeth a little on the way in, and it takes a moment for it Beau to shift her lips and tongue so it’s sitting comfortably. At least as comfortable is it can be sitting.

There’s a bell by her left hand, which, ostensibly, she’s supposed to ring in lieu of a safe word. Beau has accidentally set it off more than once in the midst of thrashing about, and a couple more times on purpose (once, to test out whether Ophelia would actually do anything about it, and once when Beau had legitimately needed it).

Ophelia lowers herself down onto the shaft of the phallus, cunt stretching around it until she hits Beau’s face. For a bit, it’s a little hard to breathe until Ophelia lifts herself back off, but then she lowers again.

That’s the sort of game they play. Sometimes, she sits there for a while, waits until Beau is on the verge of passing out, before Ophelia pulls away. Beau can’t deny that it’s kind of thrilling, in a way, getting so close to the edge. It’s a high that she hasn’t quite been able to replicate with a belt and a doorknob.

When Ophelia comes, it’s with a rush of liquid that Beau doesn’t – can’t – even try to dodge. Out of reflex, more than anything, she tries to lick her lips, but there’s a huge fucking bulb in the way.

After a minute or so; once she’s cleaned herself up, and wiped herself down, and all of those things that need to be done, Ophelia removes the phallus. She’s not gentle about it, but she’s not particularly rough, either. Beau works out her jaw, to try and remove the kinks. It’s going to be really fucking sore tomorrow (probably along with a few other things).

‘Stay there for a moment,’ Ophelia says. There’s a strange sort of look in her eyes that Beau can’t quite place. ‘I’ll be back when I think you deserve reciprocation.’

_Ugh_.

‘You’re just gonna fucking leave me here?’ Beau says, angrily. She fucking hates it when they do that. Build her up to crash, and then just leaving her forever on edge.

Ophelia doesn’t say anything.

So, she waits.

Waits a really fucking long time. Okay, maybe it’s more like ten minutes, but it feels like hours, and with her hands tied to the fucking bedposts, she can’t even try to get herself off.

Finally – fucking finally – she hears footsteps. They sound a little different, but that’s not unusual. More than once, Ophelia has left in the middle of things to change clothes, and come back in leather and heels.

The footsteps stop.

‘Am I going to lie around all day and wait, or what?’ Beau asks, still kind of angry, because usually, there’s a little more teasing, a lot less...silence. A sudden, horrible thought hits her.

‘On the contrary,’ says a slick, oily voice. Beau feels a rush of horror that rises in her chest. She looks over at her sword, useless on the other side of the room. She tugs at the bindings on her wrists, but knows that there’s know way she’ll be able to pull herself free in time. ‘I think we’re finally ready to get started.’

The Gentleman is standing at the foot of the bed, and this really isn’t the way Beau had expected this to go down. For a while, she’d sort of expected that something like this would happen, but she figured that she would have been armed. Not to mention clothed.

That’s probably her own fault.

The Gentleman’s holding his own rapier in a Zemnian grip, ready to thrust forward. As if she could do anything to stop him.

‘Don’t worry,’ he laughs. ‘I won’t humiliate you the way you humiliated me. I think we both know that this is humiliation enough. This may take a while, though; Ophelia has told me about how good you are at holding your breath.’

He drops the sword.

Just the same, though, he looks over her with his wide, blue hands, and wraps them around her throat. Makes her watch as he throttles the life from her body. She tugs at the ropes again, but they are steadfast.

His hands are like ice, and he is laughing.

That’s the last thing she notices, before she stops noticing everything.


	8. Chapter Eight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter:
> 
> Minor Yasha/Jester  
> Implied desecration of a body  
> Descriptions of a body  
> Implications of torture and violence  
> Resurrection ritual

Chapter Eight

Beau’s been gone for almost three days. She hasn’t responded to any of their messages, and Jester is starting to fear the worst. 

She tries to  _Scry_ , and there’s nothing. Not the rejection she usually gets when someone picks up on her  _Scry_ , just...nothing. There’s a part of Jester that already knows what that means, and yet she doesn’t want to let herself believe it.

‘I told her not to go north,’ Yasha says. ‘Ophelia Mardun isn’t a good person.’She’s been pacing the halls of the Lavish Chateau for the past day and a half, and it had taken Jester literally pulling her into the bedroom and eating her out that she calmed down a little bit.

‘Tell me about Ophelia Mardun,’ Jester says, when they’re lying in bed, afterwards. She’s heard a little bit from Beau, but not nearly enough to be able to do a scry. Yasha tells her as much as she can; a gray-skinned tiefling with straight horns, wearing a long coat...

So Jester s cries on Ophelia Mardun, and almost regrets it.

The tiefling is in conversation with a blue-skinned man, and they’re talking about  _really_ boring things, like shipments, and ledgers. Jester’s pretty sure she’s not going to get anything, but then, about halfway through the conversation, the blue-skinned guy says, ‘With the Lady dead,’ and Jester doesn’t really remember much after that. Her mind blanks out, and the rest of the  _Scry_ is a bit of a wash.

Beau can’t be dead.

Beau’s…

Beau’s just become this stalwart, unflinching presence in Jester’s life. She can’t be dead.

That’s the only thought that’s running through her head when she hurtles back to reality.

‘What did you see?’ Yasha asks, immediately, and Jester can’t bring herself to say. Can’t say those two words that have been pounding through her head for the last five minutes, the words that she’s been dreading ever since that first message she’d _Sent_ had bounced back.

‘She—’ Jester says, and they’re interrupted by a knock on the open door. Blude doesn’t wait for an answer before stepping in.

‘Forgive me, Miss Jester,’ he says. ‘But there’s a woman at the doo—’ Jester doesn’t even wait for him to finish before rushing past him downstairs. She doesn’t stop to think that Blude, of all people, would have said that it was Beau.

It’s not Beau.

It’s Kara.

…

Kara is beat to all hell, and Yasha is sure that the burn marks on her arms and legs mean that she’s been tortured.

Jester puts a hand to the woman’s shoulder, and clasps her symbol to the Moonweaver. The worst of the wounds start to heal up, and Kara gives a tiny gasp as she regains consciousness.

Yasha has never been particularly close with Kara, but there’s something of a professional courtesy between them, and, all things considered, Yasha would rather her be alive than dead.  Of course, though, if Kara looks like this...

‘Where’s Beau?’ Yasha demands. Kara takes a couple of long, slow breaths before answering. Yasha can see the tears in her eyes.

‘She’s dead.’

Yasha feels a strange rush of something in the air, but ignores it as she flies into a rage. She grabs Kara by the shoulders.

‘You’re lying!’ she yells, and Kara doesn’t resist as Yasha slams her against the wall. She’s not sure she even thinks that Kara _is_ lying, but she _can’t_ be telling the truth, Beau _can’t_ be dead.

‘They beat the shit out of me, and then made me watch as they dumped her body in the Savalirwood.’ Kara says. Her voice is cold. Empty. 

There’s a long, painstaking pause. Then, ‘She’s telling the truth,’ Jester says, a hitch in her voice. Yasha stares at her.

‘How do you know?’

‘I cast _Zone of Truth_.’ So that’s what the wave of magic had been. Yasha frowns and pulls her arm back. Kara falls to the ground in a slump. 

‘How did you get away?’ Jester asks.

Again, Kara doesn’t answer straight away. Her eyes are downcast. ‘They let me go,’ she says. ‘Told me to come back here, and tell you...tell you what had happened.’

‘She’s in the Savalirwood?’ Yasha demands, and Kara nods. Yasha should feel bad for being so abrupt, so aggressive, but she doesn’t have time to be nice right now. They have to get to Beau. Have to...have to do something.

Surely Jester has magic enough to bring her back.

Jester kneels down next to Kara. ‘I know they hurt you,’ she says. ‘But if we can’t get to the Savalirwood very, very quickly, I may not be able to bring her back.’

Kara nods again. ‘I know a circle in Rexxentrum,’ she says. It’s probably  three days between Rexxentrum and the Savalirwood, Yasha thinks. It would, of course, be quicker to go to Shady Creek Run, but that’s the last place any of them want to be right now. That puts them at maybe  six days since Beau had died, depending on…

Depending on when it had happened.

They have ten days, Jester says, to bring her back, before it starts getting much more complicated.

There’s no time to lose.

So, they pack their bags, and steel themselves against what horrors they might have to face, and take a _Teleportation Circle_ to Rexxentrum. Jester puts a few more healing spells into Kara, but the bard still looks quite rough. Still has that dead look in her eyes as she draws the sigil on the wooden floor of the _Lavish Chateau_ , and it hasn’t faded when they make camp in the middle of the Pearlbow Wilderness. It would have been safer to stay in Rexxentrum, but that’s a delay that they can’t afford.

Right now, nothing is more important than finding Beau. Even still, in the back of Yasha’s mind is a horrible thought, that Kara is leading them into a trap. Even if she doesn’t fully trust Kara, she doesn’t think that the woman would do that. Doesn’t think that she _is_ doing that. She’s a good actor, Yasha knows, but that dead-eyed look is hard to fake.

It’s a day and a half before they’ve crossed the Dunrock Mountains and hit the Savalirwood proper. They’re sleeping as little as they can afford, and moving as fast as possible. They’re waylaid more than once by creatures that would rather fight than run, leaving Yasha with a trio of claw marks across her back that oozes blood, and Jester with bite marks on her shoulder and torso. There’s no time to lick their wounds.

The Savalirwood is enormous, but somehow, Yasha thinks, if Ophelia Mardun and the Gentleman want to send a message, then they’re not going to do it deep in the heart of the wood. They’re going to do it in a place that’s easily found.

‘I’m trying _Locate Object_ on her clothes,’ Jester says, frowning. ‘I can’t feel anything. But that doesn’t mean anything, they might have...’ She trails off, and Yasha hears the unspoken words. _They might have taken her clothes_. Jester can’t believe she didn’t think to ask Kara what sort of state Beau had been in when they’d….y’know. At the same time, though, she’s not sure she really wants to know.

She looks over towards Kara, who isn’t even paying attention. She’s staring down at the ground, and hasn’t heard a word that Jester had said.

‘Kara,’ Jester says, gently. ‘Was, um...Did Beau have her clothes on, when they...’ She trails off, not particularly wanting to say “dumped her body.”

Kara doesn’t answer straight away. ‘No,’ she says, finally, and Yasha feels another wave of nausea in her stomach. She can’t let herself think about what they might have done. The half-elf looks around, as though only just realizing where they are. ‘I think it might be this way,’ she says, and Yasha’s not sure how she knows, because all the Savalirwood seems to look exactly the same.

Yasha is the first one to see the body.

...

‘No!’ Yasha cries out, as though until this moment, she had thought it might go another way. She runs forward without explanation, and half a moment later, Jester sees why. Sees the body that’s strung up between two trees, unclothed and unmoving.

Jester starts running, too, her breath coming hard and fast in the icy air.

Yasha is on her knees, screaming, and Jester doesn’t have the strength to join her. She’s standing there, utterly shocked. It’s as if finding this place has zapped her of all energy, so that she doesn’t even have the wherewithal to cry.

The eyes are cold and empty, and there’s a heavy ring of bruises around the neck. In death, Beau looks so small.

The body’s been there at least a couple of days, Jester thinks, and she thanks the Moonweaver that the cold air has preserved the body. She can’t let herself cry, won’t let herself cry. Beau needs her now.

Yasha cuts the ropes with her greataxe, and the body –  _Beau’s_ body – falls unceremoniously into her arms.  Jester briefly sees her back, where a symbol that she doesn’t recognize has been carved into it.

Yasha takes off her fur cloak, and wraps it around Beau’s shoulders. Her cold, lifeless shoulders. In death, her face is almost peaceful, and if not for the line of mottled bruises across her throat, she might have been sleeping. ‘She’ll be cold,’ the barbarian says, and Jester doesn’t think to contradict her. 

‘Can you...’ Yasha starts, and hesitates. ‘Can you bring her back?’

‘I think so,’ Jester says, for the first time the reality of the situation really hits her. What if the spell fails? What if her magic isn’t enough?

They can’t do it here.

Not in the Savalirwood, not so close to Shady Creek Run, to the place where Beau had died.

There’s a dark, twisted corruption in the place. If they bring her back here…

So they walk.

First, though, they dress Beau in some spare clothes of Kara’s. Yasha is far too big, and the only spare clothes that Jester has are dresses, which she feels Beau would probably be upset about. Kara’s a little bigger than Beau, but it’s better than nothing. On top of that is Yasha’s fur cloak.

Yasha carries Beau all day, refusing to trade off for even a minute. Thankfully, nothing seems to bother them,  and now that they’re on the move again, Kara seems a little more put together. Jester hates that they’d forced her to come here,  to come back to the place where horrible things had happened to her.

It’s strange. Jester’s not sure why she’s so calm about the situation. Calmer than Yasha, for sure. Maybe it’s because now they know. There’s a certainty to the situation. If Beau had been trapped somewhere in a dungeon, it would have been different, but she’s here, and she’s dead, and Jester can bring her back.

She  _knows_ she can bring her back. Or, more to the point, she can’t let herself think about what will happen if they can’t bring her back.

It takes the better part of the day for them to reach the Dunrock Mountains, far enough away from Shady Creek Run that they shouldn’t run into any issues. Kara gets a fire going, but instead of pulling out the tents, Jester takes out the earrings that Beau had given her so many weeks ago. The diamond earrings.

She’s not in the practice of carrying around diamonds just in case (though she’s definitely going to start after today).

She doubts that Beau had intended them for this purpose when she’d made them, but it seems fitting nonetheless.

In the ground, she carves the sigils she needs with a sharp rock, Beau in the center of them. ‘Moonweaver, I know you’re always listening, even if you don’t always say something back. I don’t know what Gods Beau worships, but please talk to them to help me bring her back.’

‘Ioun,’ Yasha says, quietly.

‘Please talk to Ioun!’ Jester adds, quickly.

In addition to the diamonds, Jester tears a page from her sketchbook. It’s the first picture that she’d ever drawn of Beau, and Beau’s never even seen it. In it, she’s wearing nothing at all, and is staring out the window of the  _Lavish Chateau_ . For the first fifteen minutes or so that she’d been drawing in, Beau hadn’t even noticed. Once she did, her whole body stiffened, and Jester had to rely on her memory of that peacefulness to get the lines right.

She sets the sketch on Beau’s chest.

‘It’s not much,’ Yasha says, and beneath the sketch she lays the book of pressed flowers that she keeps in her bag. ‘I don’t...’ she starts, but doesn’t finish. Yasha, like Beau, has always had trouble with expressing her feelings in words.

So she lets Jester go first.

Jester takes a shaky breath. ‘Beau, I know we haven’t known each other all that long, but I can’t imagine my life without you in it. I want us to be enough for you, and I can’t convince you of that if you’re not here for me to do it. Please come back.’  She says it all very quickly, knowing that if she doesn’t, she’ll break down somewhere in the middle. Then, she presses a kiss to Beau’s cold forehead.

There’s a flash of blue light, and one of the sigils starts to glow.

‘Your turn,’ Jester whispers to Yasha.

‘I...’ Yasha starts, and then stops. ‘I haven’t felt this way about anyone – about any _two_ ,’ she corrects herself, ‘—people since Zuala left me. For so long, you have been by my side, watching my back. Protecting me as I failed to protect you. Our life won’t be the same if you’re not in it.’

The second sigil starts to glow.

They both look a little expectantly at Kara, who looks if not embarrassed, then maybe a little like she’s intruding. Jester knows that she and Beau had had a no-strings attached sort of arrangement, but that the feelings between them are purely platonic. She half expects Kara to decline to say anything, but eventually, the half-elf clears her throat, and rummages around in her bag. Jester’s a little surprised when she pulls out a flute.

‘You know I’m not one for sentiment,’ Kara says. ‘But you could have killed me when you took _him_ down, and instead you gave me a chance.’ Her voice quavers on the word “him,” and Jester feels a sudden upswing of rage against a man that she’s never met. ‘If nothing else, then I think this week has proven that I made the right choice in taking your side.’ Then, she puts the flute to her lips, and starts to play.

It’s a sad sort of melody – or at least it starts off that way, but then after a minute or so, it gets brighter and brighter. 

As she finishes, the third sigil starts to glow. Beau’s body lifts into the air, starts to vibrate, and on reflex alone, Yasha and Jester both put their hands underneath her, ready to catch,  which they do, when the body drops all of a sudden.

There’s a beat, and then Beau gasps. She sits up, far too quickly for Jester’s liking, and clutches at her throat where the bruises had once been. Where they still are, Jester realizes, quickly, for the mottled marks have not faded. She takes half a second to reassure herself that Beau can breathe before pressing a waterskin to her lips.  Yasha holds Beau’s head as she tilts it back. 

Beau’s terrified eyes look  to  Jester, and  to Yasha, before closing once more. Yasha is immediately besieged with worry, but Jester isn’t. She remembers the first time she’d seen the  _Raise Dead_ spell cast, by  Vaeril , the cleric of the Moonweaver who had trained her. A sailor had washed up on shore, next to the covert temple, the temple hidden behind tall walls, and illusory magic. Even after he had been brought back, the sailor had been unconscious for almost a week.

For now, though, Beau’s alive.

That has to be enough.


	9. Chapter Nine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not much smut in the next couple of chapters, for obvious reasons.  
> In this chapter:  
> Post traumatic stress  
> Mentions of body desecration  
> Implications of torture

Chapter Nine

They decide against camping for the night; they’re still much, much too close to Shady Creek Run for Yasha’s liking.

They have to get a long way out of the north, and they have to do it immediately. The only question is…

‘Where is safe for us to go?’ Yasha asks. It’s the question that’s sort of been playing on her mind ever since they’d cut Beau down from that tree.

There’s a long, awkward silence. Yasha’s surprised that Kara is the one who breaks it.

‘If it was a coordinated effort, then we’ve probably lost Zadash,’ Kara says. ‘That’s certainly where he had the most supporters.’ Jester looks from Yasha to Kara, clearly lost. ‘Which means anything east of Kamordah is risky, and even Kamordah...’ She trails off, and stares down at Beau, whose head is in Jester’s lap.

‘She wouldn’t be happy if we let things fall apart just because she’s...’ Yasha frowns. ‘Indisposed.’ It doesn’t quite feel like the right word, but she can’t think of a better one.

‘You can’t take her to Kamordah,’ Jester protests. ‘It’s _way_ too dangerous there. That’s where they’ll be looking for her. We have to go back to Nicodranas.’

Yasha hesitates. She doesn’t disagree. She also doesn’t want to leave Beau behind anywhere, but they need to check in on Kamordah.

‘I can go to Kamordah,’ Kara says, in a world-weary sort of voice. ‘Liaise with Eritol. Make sure they double the guard.’

_Triple_ the guard, Yasha thinks, but at the same time, she knows they have to be extra cautious. They’ve just lost an unknown amount of their operation. Yasha’s not particularly well-versed on the business side of things, but she’s been around long enough to pick up the basics.

‘Can you take us back to Nicodranas?’ Yasha asks. Kara hesitates briefly, and then nods. She hasn’t had a chance to rest since the Gentleman’s people (or maybe even the Gentleman himself, it’s not as though Yasha had asked) beat the shit out of her (and probably more).

‘Kara,’ Jester says, as Yasha hoists Beau into her arms. ‘Thank-you. For everything. We wouldn’t have been able to get her back without you.’ Before Kara can protest, Jester has wrapped her in a tight hug. There’s a stunned sort of look on the half-elf’s face, and Yasha is surprised to see it turn to a look of warmth and tenderness. Jester does tend to have that effect on people.

Nicodranas is unbearably bright, compared to the grey skies of the Dunrock Mountains. Yussah ushers them out of the tower, quickly as he has done every time they’ve used the circle in the last two months, ever since Jester had strong-armed him into showing it to Kara. It’s much quicker than riding back and forth between Kamordah and Nicodranas, but it does mean that they have to be polite to the ancient wizard every time he lets them out of the tower.

They take Beau to the top floor of the Chateau, and tuck her into Jester’s bed. Her skin is still ice cold, but she’s breathing steadily. ‘When do you think she will wake up?’ Yasha asks.

‘I don’t know,’ Jester admits. ‘Coming back from the dead is _really_ taxing on people. Some people I’ve seen brought back were out for _days_.’

Beau is out for almost six days.

In that time, Kara makes it back to Kamordah, and confirms the suspicions that they’ve lost Zadash. Fortunately, the fact that Kamordah is more secure than some Empire strongholds means that it’s safe for now, but Yasha can only imagine that it’s not long before the Gentleman tries to wipe out the operation for good.

Jester, for her part, has canceled all of her appointments for the indefinite future. She still plays the piano downstairs in the bar, but it’s as quiet as Yasha has ever seen it. ‘I can keep an eye on things up here,’ she tells the tiefling. ‘If you want to...’ Yasha trails off, and then makes an awkward thrusting motion, which she regrets almost instantly.

‘I’m kind of enjoying the break,’ Jester admits, in a low voice, as she sits at the edge of the bed that Beau is still fast asleep in. ‘I mean, I _like_ sex...But I like being with you guys more.’ A pause. ‘Plus, you know, I can still have sex with you guys, if you want.’ They both know that it’s hardly the time for this conversation, and it ends very quickly when there’s movement and a groaning sound from the bed proper.

‘Beau!’’ Jester says, and runs to Beau’s side. There’s a look of terror in Beau’s eyes that doesn’t go away when she sees Jester’s face. If anything, it only gets worse. Beau’s hands go to her throat again, the same way that they had on the day that they had first resurrected her.

Jester runs to the water jug, and pours out half a glass.

She rushes forward, and moves to help Beau drink, but Beau jerks away as Jester touches her, and lets out a panicked sort of scream. The mug falls to the sheets, splashing water everywhere.

‘It’s okay,’ Yasha says, in what she hopes is a reassuring sort of way. Beau only flinches slightly as Yasha slides into the bed next to her. ‘I’m here, Beau.’

‘Yasha?’ Beau’s voice is trembling, and hoarse and Yasha isn’t sure she’s ever seen the woman so afraid. _What had those fuckers done to her?_ Already, they’d healed the mark that the Gentleman had made on her back; his own symbol carved into flesh with a knife. From the way it had bled, though, Yasha suspects that it had been done after death. The upside of that, is that they’d accidentally healed up Avantika’s mark, as well. The bruises on Beau’s throat, though, have scarcely faded.

‘I’m here,’ Yasha says again. ‘Jester’s going to get you some water, okay?’ Beau’s eyes dart over to Jester, who has a look of hesitation on her face. Her whole body seems to freeze. Jester runs to get more water.

Beau drinks nearly a whole jug of water with Yasha’s help, before passing out again. Her breathing has a little more life to it, a little more consistency, which has Yasha thinking that she’s still just exhausted from having died. Jester isn’t entirely convinced, and puts her hands to Beau’s shoulder. They glow with the magic of the Moonweaver.

‘Did you see how she flinched?’ Jester says, worriedly. ‘She looked so scared.’

The terror doesn’t go away for a whole.

Over the next couple of days, Beau does not speak, and wakes from half a dozen nightmares during the times that Yasha sits with her, and two or three more with Jester.

Even though it’s a zillion degrees warmer in Nicodranas, Beau  still shivers  as though she’s back in the Savalirwood, and the bruises have not faded from her neck . She’s wearing some of Jester’s old painting clothes, and still has Yasha’s cloak wrapped around her, the same cloak that’s been wrapped around her since they’d  _Raised_ her almost two weeks ago. There are blankets piled onto the bed, and most days, Beau doesn’t leave it.

She hasn’t said much more than single words, will barely eat anything, unless Jester literally makes her, and she flinches every time one of them touches her on the neck, or on the wrists.

She won’t look either of them in the eye.  Occasionally, she lets Yasha pull her into an embrace if it’s a particularly bad nightmare; Yasha soon learns that those are the ones she  _doesn’t_ scream from. Instead, there’s silent, apoplectic terror.

Y asha doesn’t blame her. She has her own nightmares almost every night; of finding Beau’s body strung up in the woods, of finding Jester, or Zuala, or Molly’s bodies in the same position. She has long since learned how to wake from a nightmare without screaming, though.

Slowly,  Beau starts to regain some functionality; murmurs her thanks to Jester one day, when Jester hands her a mug of hot cocoa. Then, later that night, she kisses Yasha on the cheek before bed, gives her a look of gratitude.

The terror diminishes, but not by much.

She hasn’t yet told them of what happened the night she’d died, and Yasha doesn’t think she will any time soon. Not that it’s stopped Jester from pushing the matter. Yasha, for her part, knows all too well how to keep a secret. Things tend to come out in their own time – at the right time, and Yasha has no desire to speed that up.

‘She won’t even _look_ at me,’ Jester wails one day, long after Beau has fallen asleep. They’re in one of the other rooms on the top floor of the Chateau; somewhere along the way, they’d started sharing bed, and it had felt like the most natural thing in the world. There’s still something – someone – missing though.

Yasha frowns. She has seen Beau looking at her quite a few times, even flashing a small smile every once in a while, in amongst all the thousand-yard-stares. She hadn’t noticed whether or not the monk had been looking at Jester or not.

Over the next few days, she takes the opportunity to pay a little more attention than she might usually.  Beau has started leaving the bed, but only to star out the window for hours at a time. True to Jester’s concerns, every time Beau even looks like she might be glancing towards Jester’s direction, she jerks her head suddenly, and turns away. It’s strange. But not unusual. Yasha has dealt with her fair share of people that have experienced horrific things in their lives, and every reaction is different.

‘She has been through a very traumatic experience,’ Yasha reminds the tiefling.

‘How can we help her if she won’t tell us what happened?’

Yasha doesn’t answer straight away. How can she answer. It’s not, after all, as though she hasn’t been keeping secrets too. Jester knows hardly anything of her life before meeting Beau. For that matter, Yasha’s pretty sure that Beau doesn’t know the whole story either.

‘We can help without having to know what happened by doing what we’re doing now; by being there for her, and helping her heal.’

They will do it, Yasha thinks. However long it takes.

…

Yasha seems to be convinced that Beau will be okay, eventually. Jester can’t help but have doubts. In all her life, this is the first time she’s come across something that her magic can’t heal, that a  _Cure Wounds_ or a  _Greater Restoration_ has no effect on. 

Every day, Beau seems a little more cognizant of her surroundings, a little more willing to interact with the world around her, but it’s going much more slowly than Jester would like.

One day, almost three weeks after their return to Nicodranas, everything changes.

Jester comes into her room in the morning, the same way she always does, to bring Beau breakfast, and open the curtains, only this morning is different.

The bed is empty.

Beau is gone.

‘Yasha!’ Jester yells. She runs to the bed, looking for any sign of a disturbance. There’s no disturbance; in fact, everything is folded neatly, and a scroll of parchment bound by ribbon is sitting on the nightstand. A bright blue ribbon; the kind that Beau wears – had worn – in her hair. 

Jester all but rips the ribbon off, and unfurls the parchment. Her first thought is  _wow, Beau has neat handwriting_ . She’s not sure why it’s a surprised; Beau had trained with the Kensei monks, who are renowned for their punishingly detailed calligraphy training. Still, it’s the first time she’s seen it on paper, pun intended.

Jester doesn’t look up as Yasha’s thundering footsteps grow closer.

_Jester_ , the letter reads.  _I’m sorry for leaving like this in the middle of the night, but I know if I’d done it during the day, you would have tried to stop me. Yasha, I think you probably understand, but I get the feeling that you’d go ahead and tell Jester anyway._ _If I am going to get past what happened to me, then I cannot do it here, where even the hint of my presence will put both of you in danger._ _Thank-you for everything you have done. I can’t imagine what my life would have been like without you in it. I hope that I will see you again one day._

_Much love,_

_Beauregard_ .


	10. Chapter Ten

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter kicked my ass, so sorry it's been a few days. Remember that reviewing will probably help me get them out faster.
> 
> In this chapter:  
> No smut  
> General angst  
> Mentions of past character death

Chapter Ten

Jester stands there, dumbfounded. Judging by the slight intake of breath, Yasha finishes the letter a minute or so after she does.

‘She can’t just _leave_!’ Jester says, horrified. ‘She—’ Jester can’t even find the words to describe what this is. It’s just...It’s too much.

‘I do not think this is necessarily a bad thing,’ Yasha says, finally, and Jester can tell that she’s reluctant about saying it. After all, how can Beau leaving not be the worst possible thing to happen right now.

Of course, it’s not the worst. They’ve already experienced the worst, that day just two weeks prior, on the outskirts of the Savalirwood.

After a moment, Yasha continues. ‘I think we both know that she wasn’t getting any better by being here.’

There’s a moment of pained silence, and Jester hates that she can’t disagree. Hates that all the help that they’d been giving Beau hadn’t been enough.

So even though she doesn’t verbally disagree with Yasha’s statement, it still fucking hurts, and she still _Scries_ for four days straight trying to find Beau, and uses up thousands of gold worth of focuses in doing so. It yields her nothing more than a questioning look on Yasha’s face, and a headache.

She also _Sends_ like...a _hundred_ messages, and doesn’t get any response.

The first three days, Jester doesn’t take any clients, and spends her time pacing the top floor of the _Chateau_ . It reaches the point where even Blude is worried, because _technically_ she should really be taking clients if she wants to keep the place in business.

It’s not that they’re lost without Beau. Jester loves Yasha as much as she loves Beau, loves that softness hiding behind a saddened rage, loves her hair, and her eyes, and her smile, loves the way she can pick up both Beau and Jester without even trying. They could have been happy together, she thinks, even if Beau hadn’t been involved.

But she had been, and now she’s missing, and it’s like there’s an empty space in the puzzle that’s their relationship, a space that can never be filled until they have their missing third.

What Beau had said in the letter is true, Jester thinks; Yasha does seem to understand why she’s left. At least, she seems to think that Beau will come back in her own time. In any case, she doesn’t stop Jester from scrying, but she isn’t overly concerned that Beau is gone.

That’s not true. Of course that’s not true. Of course she’s concerned; Jester catches Yasha’s gaze at night, when she thinks Jester isn’t looking. Sees the way her ears perk up when she hears the distant sound that might be a boot on a stick. Sees the hopeful look in her eyes when the door of the tavern opens.

Yasha might understand why Beau’s gone, but that doesn’t mean that the aasimar isn’t desperate to get her back. That they both aren’t desperate to get her back. Not just because they miss her, but because they are worried about her. Now, more than ever, Beau needs them.

On the fifth day, the _Scry_ goes through. Whether it’s because Beau hadn’t managed to resist it, or because she decided to let it, Jester can’t tell, but she is relieved nonetheless.

Beau is leaning up against a tree, drinking from a waterskin. She’s wearing her usual traveling clothes – shirt, and waistcoat, and leather breeches – but she’s carrying a staff and an unfamiliar looking backpack. Both the staff and the backpack look new, and Jester is intrigued. Before meeting Beau, she’d thought that all monks used staves, and had never met one that used a sword. Now, though, it’s weird to see Beau without a sword. Her sword is still somewhere up north; they hadn’t wasted any time looking for it when they had gone to find her.

Now, though, she almost regrets that fact, because it means that Beau is traveling a potentially dangerous road with no means of defending herself.

Beau sits against the tree, not moving, for almost the entirety of the scry, during which Jester scours the surroundings, trying to find something familiar in the landscape. There are mountains and a vast-looking forest in the distance, and some wide, green expanses, and a couple of dozen scattered trees near the road. Only in the last few seconds does Beau make a move to get up, and when she does, Jester’s vision pulls away with a jerk.

Jester, who has never been out of Nicodranas (except for that single trip to the Savalirwood) has no idea where Beau had been. She rushes to find Yasha, who, at the very least, has seen the roads in and out of Nicodranas.

‘If I draw what I saw, do you think you could figure out where she was?’

Yasha hesitates.

‘She went of her own accord,’ she says, finally. Jester doesn’t quite get what Yasha means, until she adds, ‘She did not want to be followed.’

‘But the road is so dangerous!’ Jester protests, not particularly knowing whether or not it’s true. ‘At least we could have traveled _with_ her.’

‘I do not think it would be a bad thing for her to clear her mind on her own terms.’

They are at an impasse, Jester realizes. She doesn’t have a chance of finding Beau without Yasha’s help, and Yasha doesn’t seem immediately inclined to do so.

The worst part of it is, Jester is pretty sure she’s right. Actually no. The worst part is that Yasha clearly wants to drop everything and follow Beau, but is restraining herself from doing so.

Even still, Jester still _Sends_ a message to Beau every day for the next two weeks, on the off chance that she gets a response. She doesn’t, and when she eventually decides to start _Scrying_ again, none of the _Scries_ go through.

‘Hey, Yasha?’ Jester’s voice sounds pensive. ‘How much do you know about the place where Beau did her monk training?’

‘Not a lot,’ Yasha admits. Beau had mentioned it a few times, and they had had some conversations, but never enough for Yasha to get a clear picture of the place.

‘Do you think that it’s protected from _Scrying_? So like...people can meditate all day without other peoples’ voices popping into their heads?’ It’s a thought that’s been going through her head for a few days now. Of course, it’s also possible that Beau had bought a ring or a necklace to stop Jester’s messages from coming through all hours of the day.

Jester could rest a little easier if she had just _known_ something. The not knowing is the hardest part. When they do eventually get news, though, it’s not the news that either of them had been expecting.

They’re eating breakfast in the _Chateau_ ; Yasha’s been busy trying to keep things afloat in Nicodranas with daily instructional messages from Kara, who’s taken most of the lead on the “running a crime syndicate” front. It makes sense, Yasha tells Jester, who doesn’t have much experience with these sorts of things.

They’re sitting around the table in one of the parlors, eating blueberries and pancakes, when a strange look crosses Yasha’s face. The look she gets whenever an unexpected message comes through, even though, as far as Jester can tell, Kara _Sends_ them at the same time every morning. Jester wonders if that’s what people look like when she sends her messages.

The message seems to end, and Yasha’s frown deepens. ‘I just got a message from Kara,’ she says. ‘Ophelia Mardun is dead.’

‘Well…’ Jester shrugs. She’s not sure that she’s supposed to be upset about this. After all, Ophelia had been almost entirely responsible for handing Beau over to the Gentleman. At least, that’s the conclusion that they’ve reached.

‘Her throat was slit,’ Yasha adds, and there’s a moment of pause between them. There’s only one person that either of them know that carries a sword that could be used for slitting throats.

‘Do you think it was Beau?’ Jester asks, hesitantly. She’s not sure what she wants the answer to be.

It’s almost laughable that cold-blooded murder would be an improvement, but at the same time, if Beau is going after the people that hurt her...It’s dangerous.

‘I didn’t get any more information than that,’ is all Yasha says. Jester takes it upon herself to find out more.

‘Hey Kara, it’s Jester, just wondering if you also heard anything about who it was that killed Ophelia Mardun, like was it an assassin, or—’ Yasha mouths “twenty-five,” and Jester cuts herself off.

Kara’s response is a _way_ better use of the limited message length than Jester’s has ever been. She still manages to convey slight disdain in her tone of voice.

_Drow woman, purplish-black skin. Long platinum hair. Not sure who she is, but the Gentleman’s people are getting a little antsy._

Hmm.

It’s not Beau.

Not that Beau isn’t necessarily involved. Beau could very easily have been in disguise, or have hired someone to commit the murder. It doesn’t seem like Beau’s style though. She would want Ophelia Mardun to know exactly what was coming to her.

‘What reason could this person have to kill Ophelia Mardun?’ Yasha wonders, after Jester relays Kara’s description. Yasha has no idea who this person could be. ‘Not that I’m sorry...’

‘It could be like...a _vigilante_ ,’ Jester says. ‘Like...going around, killing all the important crime bosses in the Empire.’ Even as she’s said it, Jester is suddenly fearful. No-one is supposed to know that Beau’s alive, but if she’s been traveling, and making no effort to hide her identity…

She’s not that stupid, Jester knows, but she still cannot shake the feeling that Beau is in danger. That’s the crux of it.

Of course, she could have been in danger since the day that she’d left, but now there’s a real, tangible threat out there.

Jester’s not even sure there really is a threat; the death of one (kinda shitty person) isn’t exactly a pattern, but she has (and Yasha has been starting to be) chomping at the bit to get out there and find Beau, to _help_ her.

Jester packs a bag, and runs to Yasha’s room to find the other woman already ready to go. They’re definitely on the same page, for the first time in two weeks.

From her bright pink haversack, Jester pulls the picture that she’d drawn after that single successful _Scry_ , the picture of Beau leaning up against the tree. Yasha stares at it for a few moments.

‘This could be the Cyrengreen Forest,’ she says, eventually. ‘Five days, if she was moving north, then she would have been past the Wuyun Gates.’ Another pause. ‘She’ll want to avoid Zadash. Alfield and Trostenwald are too small for her to go by unnoticed. The only place I can think of would be Deastock or Kamordah.’

‘Or the monastery,’ Jester adds, remembering her first thoughts after her _Scries_ failed. ‘It’s near Kamordah, though, isn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ Yasha says. So they start off towards Kamordah.

It’s a reasonably good journey, Jester thinks, in spite of the fact that it’s _technically_ her first time doing any appreciable amount of travel. It had been hard enough in the Savalirwood, lugging a body with them up into the mountains. At least this is reasonably flat, and the only thing she’s carrying apart from her pack, is the shield (also strapped to her back) and a mace (strapped to her waist).

They get into a few scuffles along the way, and Jester gets to use some of the cool spells she’d learned ages ago, but never gotten the opportunity to cast against an opponent, like her _Sacred Flame_ or the _Warding Flare_.

When they’re still a day out of Kamordah (not far from Deastock, according to Yasha) they see the first of the lookouts on the side of the road. They’re heavily armored, well-armed, and recognize Yasha on sight. They give her a nod that’s almost reverential.

‘Seen anything unusual?’ she asks. Jester figures that it would probably be a bit of a giveaway to ask if they’ve seen Beau. Hopefully no-one knows that she’s still alive; if they’d even heard that she’d died in the first place. It can be hard to tell how fast news travels sometimes.

They frown. ‘Nothing recently.’ Yasha gives a nod, and they keep moving. The closer they get to Kamordah, the more of Beau’s people Jester starts to see. She’s beginning to realize why people have referred to Kamordah as a fortress.

It seems a little strange then, that they haven’t seen Beau.

‘Not really,’ Yasha says, with a shrug. ‘She knows the defenses. Knows the best way to get around them.’

They keep walking.

Eventually, they start seeing the vineyards. Thousands and thousands of acres of grapes, all owned by...well, owned by Beau, she supposes. She’d never really asked too many questions about the business side of things, and Beau hadn’t been inclined to share. This...this is way bigger than she’d thought it was.

The enormity of it all, though, hits Jester when they reach the town proper. It’s a nice little town. Not too big, but with lots of people keeping an eye out. There are quiet a few modest houses, and one or two really big ones. Yasha takes her to the biggest one.

The house is, Jester thinks, really fucking nice.

Like...way nicer than the _Lavish Chateau._ She’d probably go as far as to call it a mansion. This is what Beau had run away from, once upon a time.

What she had run back to.

The guards at the door let Yasha in without question. She must have a lot of clout here, given the ease of their passage.

They find Kara in an office, doing paperwork. She looks pretty fucking surprised to see them.

‘What the hell are you doing here?’ she demands. ‘You should have told me you were coming. I would have prepared a room.’

‘Is Beau here?’ Jester asks, before the conversation can go any further.

‘She’s not,’ Kara says. ‘Just like she wasn’t the last _two hundred_ times that you’ve asked me over the past three weeks. I don’t know where she is.’

‘You’re lying,’ Yasha says, and Kara hesitates. Jester cant tell whether Yasha actually can tell Kara’s lying, or is just guessing.

‘Fine,’ Kara says, finally. She looks kind of relieved at being caught out. It hadn’t exactly taken much to crack her. ‘She came through here a couple of weeks back. Made me promise not to tell you where she was going. But I guess you figured it out anyway, right?’

‘Right,’ Yasha says. The expression on her face is one of thinly veiled rage. Jester has never seen Yasha truly angry. She’s seen her scared, and worried, and maybe even a little bit happy, but never truly angry. Her expression softens slightly. ‘How...how was she doing?’

Kara’s face crumples a little. ‘I mean?’ she says, shrugging. ‘About as well as you’d expect for someone who got murdered a few weeks ago.’

‘Did she...talk to you?’

‘Well, we didn’t exactly have a full on conversation, but she said some things. Told me to keep the place going while she was gone, stuff like that.’ A pause. ‘She said she was going to clear her head.’

Jester and Yasha share a look.

They know what they have to do next.

...

The Kensei monks train in secret.

Jester knows, from conversations with Beau, that it’s a monastery somewhere in the mountains. She also knows that Beau had run away from Kamordah that first time. Which leads her to believe that the monastery is somewhere in the mountains north of Kamordah. She’s not sure why she thinks north, instead of west, only Beau had talked about the snow, and the bitter winds, which drums up an image of “north” in Jester’s mind.

(Then, Yasha intimidates a bartender into giving her the answer anyway. Jester’s right, it’s north).

It’s an arduous five day journey through the mountains, for any supplicant that wishes to undertake the trials of the Kensei. The journey itself, the bartender says, is the first trial.

So she and Yasha load up their bags with provisions, and Jester buys a nice winter cloak from an asshole merchant, whose store she takes great pleasure in rearranging when he isn’t looking. She supposes that the Moonweaver wouldn’t exactly be happy with that, but Jester doesn’t have much patience for assholes.

The first day is hard.

It’s the easiest day of the trek, they’ve been told, and even though Jester considers herself reasonably fit, she’s still exhausted by the end of it. Yasha seems to take it all in stride, and carries Jester’s backpack for half the day.

The second day is even harder, and Jester feels like she’s spending more time resting than she is walking. She spends up half her spells on healing herself, and Yasha when the aasimar will let her. She can’t imagine doing this in the Summer, when it’s a million degrees hotter before you cross the snow line.

By the time they get to the fifth day, Jester is regretting her decision to make this journey. She really, really hopes that Beau had come up here prepared, instead of in her traveling shirt and waistcoat. She really, really, _really_ hopes that they don’t find her body up here again, frozen to death.

But, she remembers, Beau’s been to this place before, and is far better prepared for the journey than either Jester or Yasha had been.

She would have known about the glaciers that she’d have to cross, and the caves to sleep in at night, and the sixty-foot rock wall that marks the penultimate part of the journey.

After they crest the mountain peak, the path descends into something of a valley, albeit a valley that’s still well above almost anything else in the area. In the heart of the valley is an expansive, gorgeous building made entirely of stone. Because they’re a decent amount lower than they have been, the snow isn’t quite as heavy, and there’s no small amount of things growing around the monastery. Its own little oasis in the heart of a hellish snowscape.

It’s the middle of the day when they arrive, exhausted, and sunburned, and in need of a nice, tall glass of milk.

Jester doesn’t recognize the language that’s carved into the top of the archway leading into the monastery, but beneath it is what she assumes is the Common translation. “Enter here all who wish to undertake the Trials of the Kensei.”

They walk through the archway, and follow the stone pathway, up a set of stone stairs, into a very peaceful looking garden.

And there, sitting on a rock, with her brow unfurrowed, and her eyes closed, is Beau.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What's Beau been up to since coming back from the dead? Find out next chapter, I guess.


	11. Chapter Eleven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter:
> 
> Mild Beau/OC  
> Post Traumatic Stress  
> Flashbacks to a traumatic event/mentions of character death  
> Unhealthy coping mechanisms involving sex  
> Lack of using a safeword when a safeword really should have been used  
> Panic attack during sexual activities

Chapter Eleven

For a while, there’s only darkness.

A different sort of darkness to the one that usually clouds her mind, not the guilt of her actions, or the knowledge of her sins, but a physical, palpable, inescapable darkness that utterly consumes her. The darkness she’d first felt with a shaking hand on the hilt of her sword, surrounded by a pool of blood.

Beau tries to escape this darkness, but can’t. She tries to look for even the single hint of light, something that she hold onto, to pull herself out of there.

There’s nothing.

That’s about the time that Beau realizes she’s dead, about the time she remembers the cold hands at her throat, the laughing blue face above her.

The life she’s led, the things she’s done (the people she’s killed)…there’s no endless athenaeum that’s rumored to greet the devout followers of Ioun, no fields of Elysium, or eternal paradise. Just...darkness.

After a while, she starts to see faces, though none of them are immediately familiar. They’re all so shrouded in shadow that the look like nothing more than ghosts, which, given what had happened, she supposes that they are. She wonders, if she looked hard enough, she would see the faces of her parents. The faces of Molly, and Tori, of all the people who have died in her name, or for her shitty little cause.

The faces of the people that she’d stepped over to get where she is. After all, the Gentleman hadn’t murdered her for no reason.

Then, in amongst all of it, she sees a tiny pinprick of light.

She goes towards it.

She could almost swear that she sees a different set of faces; of Jester, and Yasha, and of Kara. Arguably the three most important people in her life

It’s a little sad, she thinks, how much she’s come to define her life by the people that she’s fucked. Or the people that have fucked her, more accurately. Three of whom she wakes to hovering over her when Beau finally finds, finally grasps that little point of light.

She gasps into consciousness, feeling the ache in every single point of her body, the unceasing pressure at her neck and her wrists. Someone presses a waterskin to her lips, and she drinks greedily, hyper-aware of the hand that’s holding the back of her head.

The only feeling she can quite manage is fear, fear that they will come after her, will come after Yasha and Jester. She doesn’t quite manage to get those feelings out, though, before the darkness takes her once more.

…

Beau doesn’t know how long it is before she wakes up again.

It’s mostly darkness during that time, though she does have a lot of weird dreams that she doesn’t remember.

When the darkness fades, and she blinks herself awake, she’s lying in a familiar bed, covered in blankets, and surrounded by pillows. ‘Beau!’ There’s a flash of blue, and Beau is immediately beset by terror. Her hand goes straight to her throat, and even though she knows that it’s Jester, knows that she’s safe, knows that she’s alive, that terror does not fade, and when Jester goes to touch her, she cannot help the full-body jerk and half scream as she pulls away.

_It’s not him,_ she tries to tell herself.  _It’s not the Gentleman. It’s Jester._

Try as she might, she can’t shake that image, can’t shake the feeling of hands around her throat. Can’t shake the fear. She settles slightly as Yasha moves in next to her. Even before they’d started sleeping together, Yasha had been a solid, immovable structure in Beau’s life.

‘It’s okay,’ Yasha says. ‘I’m here.’

‘Yasha?’ Beau’s not quite sure what she’s trying to put into that single word. _Is it really you? Are you really here? Did you really risk your lives to pull me out of the darkness?_

With Yasha’s help, Beau drinks what feels like a whole jug of water, but still, she can’t stop swallowing, can’t get rid of the feeling that there are hands still around her throat. Can’t help the feeling that every time she sees blue, she’s about to die all over again.

That same nightmare hits her night after night. Ropes wrapped around her wrists, hands wrapped around her throat. Or worse, ropes wrapped around her wrists, forcing her to watch as the people she loves are killed in front of her.

Despite the roaring fire, her skin is ice cold.

Deep down, she knows that if she talks to them, acknowledges their efforts in helping her heal, she’ll feel better, but she can’t. The moment she starts talking, they’ll start asking questions (not that Jester hasn’t already tried) and Beau is not even close to ready for that conversation, not even close to ready to admitting what an idiot she’d been.

Eventually, Beau has the energy and the wherewithal to get out of bed. It’s not much, but compared to the days of listlessness, of staring at the plain ceiling, it’s something. Not that staring out the window is any better. It’s during that time, of watching the waves crash against the shore, watching carts move up and down the busy street, watching people go about their daily business, that she makes her decision.

…

Beau leaves Nicodranas in the dead of the night, footfalls silent against the wooden floor. She doesn’t want to do it. She  _hates_ that she has to do it. But every night that she spends here is another night that she can feel the nightmares of what had happened pressing in on her.

Not that being away from here will necessarily help, but at least she will know that her presence won’t be putting Jester and Yasha in danger, for surely after three weeks, news of her being alive has leaked to the Gentleman.

Once she’s north of the Wyoun gates, she sticks as far west as she can. Too far east, she runs the risk of drawing the Gentleman’s attention.

Still, she does make a very brief stop in Trostenwald to pick up a quarterstaff, and a backpack. No-one outside of the monastery has seen her fight with a quarterstaff before, so it might be enough to sway their attention.

She swings full west after that, preferring the uncertainty of the Cyrengreen Forest to the known danger of the Amber Road.

Deastock, at least, is too close to Kamordah for anyone to risk taking it down. Beau manages to find a room for a night without attracting too much attention to herself, and, after a moment of consideration, puts in a request for companionship.

Her name is Telin, and s he’s not that much older than Beau – maybe twenty-eight or twenty-nine, but she has a world-weariness that suggests she’s been in the business for a while, fielding requests from drunken louts, and nervous teens, and down-on-their luck crime bosses. She looks almost relieved when she sees Beau (still wearing the waistcoat and breeches) no doubt because she looks like a respectable person that won’t cause any trouble.

Beau grimaces, internally.

‘How much would you make in a month?’ Beau asks. It’s not supposed to be a prying sort of question, but too late she realizes how it comes off. Luckily, Telin does not seem to take offence at the question.

‘Maybe fifty gold,’ she says. It’s on the low end, in terms of what companions make, Beau thinks, but then Deastock certainly isn’t the sort of place people think of when looking for companionship. Not compared to Nicodranas, at least.

Beau takes out her coin purse, and tests its weight with a flick of her wrist. There’s at least a couple of hundred gold in there. Not everything she’s got, but a good chunk of it at least. ‘Take this,’ she says. ‘Every single depraved thought that’s ever crossed your mind, I want you to do.’

The words are out of Beau’s mouth before she’s even thought them through. Understandably, Telin looks a little startled. ‘Uh,’ she says.

‘Tie me up, whip me senseless, beat the shit out of me, whatever you’ve always wanted to do to someone, but they’ve never asked.’

There’s a long pause. ‘Look, I appreciate the offer of gold,’ Telin says, ‘But...I don’t think I’m the person that you want. You want me to fuck you up, fine, but we need to set clear boundaries and  use a safe word .’

Beau hesitates. Deastock isn’t exactly a big town, and it’s unlikely that she’ll find anyone else around that will scratch the itch that’s been building up inside her.

_Ugh_ .

‘Okay,’ she says. They hash out the details, with as much casualness as though they’d been deciding what to have for dinner. It’s definitely not the first time that Telin has had to negotiate a kink, and she seems to err on the side of over-negotiating, rather than under-negotiating, which would be great in normal circumstances, but not in a situation where Beau wants all semblance of control taken away from her. It’s better than nothing.

Beau strips her clothes off, and places them into a neatly folded pile. It’s a habit that she’d gotten into far too long ago, that’s never quite left her. If she has to make a quick getaway, she doesn’t want to be running around trying to find her underwear.

Telin would have to be blind not to notice the dark line of bruises across Beau’s neck, or the way her voice still sort of sounds like she’s been smoking cigarettes since she was six. But, like any good courtesan, she doesn’t ask questions.

Instead, she takes silken rope, and binds it around Beau’s wrists. Before they’re even attached to anything, Beau can feel her whole body tensing up. She clenches her fist.

‘Everything okay?’ Telin asks, pausing in the securing of the rope to the bedpost.

‘Yes,’ Beau lies. She can’t stop now. If she stops now, she’ll never start again. She can get through this. She has to get through this.

A finger brushes the side of her cheek, and for a moment, everything freezes.

Beau doesn’t even realize that she’s screaming, until Telin pulls away, swearing, cutting the ties at Beau’s wrists. There’s a moment of blinding white confusion, and when it passes, Beau is on her knees, gasping for breath. She looks up and sees Telin rubbing a welt on her cheek. Beau suddenly realizing that her fist is aching.

‘You know,’ Telin says. ‘We set a safe word for a reason.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Beau gasps. ‘I...I didn’t know that was going to happen.’ She’d thought she had been ready for this. She’d thought she’d been _stronger_ that this. Clearly not.

She digs around in her bag, and finds her main coin purse. A hundred gold tip should probably cover it. There’s not really an easy way to say “sorry I freaked out during sex and punched you in the face.”

‘Honestly,’ Telin says, shrugging. ‘Not the worst thing someone’s accidentally done.’ But she pockets the hundred gold anyway. Beau can’t quite manage to look her in the eye as she gets dressed.

She gets out of there quickly, before realizing that Telin had come to her room. They have an awkward sort of crossover in the hallway as Beau goes back in, and throws herself down onto the bed.

‘ _Fuck_ ,’ she says.

…

The next morning, Beau makes her way north. The road from Deastock to Kamordah is patrolled pretty heavily by her people, but she has a route she likes to take when she wants to avoid the armored soldiers gawping at her. Now, that seems like kind of an oversight, one she’ll have to look to fix if she wants to avoid anyone else taking that same route.

Getting into the house, she definitely can’t do without alerting the guards, and they give her the third degree before deciding that she isn’t actually an imposter, and let her in. It probably helps that she threatens to eviscerate them.

Kara is upstairs, having just barely gotten out of bed.

‘Are you _kidding_ me?’ she hisses. ‘I have had _fourteen_ messages from Jester, all in a panic because she doesn’t know where the fuck you are, and you just come _waltzing_ in here.’

Beau hesitates. ‘I need to ask a favor,’ she says. The last thing she needs is Jester and Yasha following her here.

Kara presses a hand to her forehead. She doesn’t even wait for Beau to ask the question. ‘I can lie to them,’ she says, wearily.

Beau wants to hug her, but decides against it. In recent weeks, half the time that someone has touched her, it has set off a panic attack.

Better not to risk it.

…

Beau spends the night in Kamordah, and turns down Kara’s offer for company. Not that she’s not interested, but she doesn’t want a repeat of Deastock. Somehow, it’d be worse being someone she knows.

‘They really care about you, you know,’ Kara says, as they have breakfast the next morning. Beau’s not sure if her voice is wistful or not. She’s never considered Kara a particularly romantic person. Like Beau, she sleeps with a lot of different people. Unlike Beau, she doesn’t really let her emotions get involved.

‘I know,’ Beau says, suppressing a sigh. The fact that they love her is what makes it so fucking hard.

‘Don’t fuck them over,’ are Kara’s parting words. Beau tries to take them to heart, as she sets out on the arduous journey north.

She’d raided the pantry and the coolroom for supplies, and dug through her closet until she’d found her old vestments. They’re actually a little tight, somehow. She has a pretty warm coat that she thinks might have been her father’s, and she tries not to think about how he’d died in this room as she shrugs it on over her robes.

It’s been almost five years since she’d been back to the monastery.

Even living in Kamordah, barely a week’s travel away, she’d somehow never found the time. Dairon, of course, would be pissed, but then, the elf had never bothered coming to visit her either.

Ostensibly, it’s a five day journey, but Beau’s a fast mover when she wants to be, and she knows the path well enough that it only takes four and a half.

It’s near midnight when she stumbles in,  having forgotten just how strenuous that last section of the climb is, scrambling up steep rocks, ignoring the rusted old chain that’s supposed to help, but has become slippery with snow.

Generally, there are monks awake at all hours, just in case someone does exactly the thing that Beau just has; namely, wander in, looking for food, and shelter. 

Beau admits, she’s a little surprised to find Dairon sitting in the meditation garden, eyes closed. They snap open as Beau walks up, and Beau wonders if her footsteps are really that distinctive.

‘What happened?’ Dairon asks, and Beau must look so utterly defeated, showing up with her tail between her legs, her sword missing, wearing vestments that are too small, and a coat that’s too big. So instead of waiting for an answer, Dairon stands, and welcomes her with open arms.

Not an actual hug, because Dairon isn’t exactly a hugger, but she does put a hand on Beau’s shoulder, which is about the amount of touch that Beau expects from her when they’re not in a bedroom setting.  Somehow, the touch is a welcome one.

‘I fucked up,’ Beau says with a shrug.

‘Are you referring to the vast criminal empire?’ Dairon asks, with an eyebrow quirked. Okay, yeah, that might ruffle a few feathers with the monks in charge.

‘Vast criminal nothing, now,’ Beau mutters, and she angles her head in such a way to show Dairon the bruises across her neck that haven’t quite faded. ‘I trusted the wrong person,’ she says.

Dairon gives a sympathetic smile that might as well be a grimace. ‘Welcome home,’ they say.


	12. Chapter Twelve

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter:  
> Post Traumatic Stress  
> Mentions of previous death and the associated trauma  
> Beau/Dairon  
> Ropeplay  
> Fingering  
> Cunnilingus

Chapter Twelve

By the time morning comes, Beau’s name is already on the chore roster. The Kensei monks are nothing if not efficient. After breakfast, Beau sits in front of a cracked mirror while Dairon shaves her head. It’s not mandatory, but it is encouraged, and the last thing Beau wants is to give anyone a reason to kick her out.

This time, she knows what she’s getting into.

She welcomes the calluses on her hands, the uncomfortable night’s sleep, the pre-dawn wake-up bells. Welcomes even the six mile trek through snow and down crumbling rocks to collect water and catch fish for the day’s meals. There’s a small vegetable garden tended to by some of the more magically inclined monks, but Beau has never been a vegetarian, and isn’t inclined to start now.

It’s a rigid, disciplined routine that’s somehow so similar to being tied to a bed, which Beau supposes is why she had taken so well to it in the first place. For all that she eschews authority, somehow when it’s the  _right_ authority, the authority that nurtures her, helps her grow, it’s okay. For years, her mind has been scrambling, trying to find the right moral code that she can’t quite figure out on her own, so she finds other people to learn from, and molds it to suit her own needs.

Of course, the drug and alcohol smuggling hadn’t exactly been the path of a pious individual. Not that she regrets it. Not that she knows for certain that she’ll never go back to it. There are a million or so pieces that she needs to pick up before that will happen, starting with getting her own head back on straight. Even her straight, though, is kind of crooked.

She hates that something that had once brought her so much pleasure, so much joy, now brings only fear, and pain.

After breakfast, they train, and it’s shamefully, after a round of sparring with a borrowed sword, that Beau tells the story of how she’d been strangled while tied naked to a bed. It’s the story she hasn’t even told Yasha and Jester yet, mostly because it’ll drive home the thought that’s been playing in the back of her head for months now. That they are enough. That she doesn’t need anyone else apart from them.

Dairon, to her credit, doesn’t judge. She’s judged Beau for a lot of things in the past, but apparently, not for this. Beau is supremely grateful, and doesn’t even take advantage of the gap that Dairon leaves in her defenses. 

They train for almost four hours that day, and when they’re done, Beau cleans off in the steaming hot springs, before settling in for her afternoon meditation.

She’s never been particularly good at the meditation side of things. Finds it hard to clear her mind, when there’s thought jumping back and forth all the time. It’s even worse, now that she’s died. She’d been dead for almost a week, according to Jester (who’d said a lot of things while Beau had been sort of just...catatonic); just long enough that being able to bring her back hadn’t been a sure thing. She has no memories of the time that her mind had been beyond the mortal coil, but she has nightmares about it anyway. About things that might never have happened. A flash of dark wings, and bright eyes. A clawed foot on her shoulder.

There’s the vague sort of memory of something pulling her soul back, of three familiar, distinct voices that speak words that sooth her; the feeling is so clear in her head, but try as she might, she can’t remember the words that they’d spoken.

That night, she sleeps a little bit easier, though that’s as much the strenuous training as it is the meditation. It probably helps that nobody’s going to tie her to a mat on the floor.

The next day is much the same. At five a.m, she wakes to the tolling bells, and has a quick bath in the hot springs. Then, she puts on new vestments of a  pale grey , as well as her foot socks and leg bindings, and makes the climb down to  catch fish with Dairon.

It’s a little easier than the climb to the monastery proper, and there’s a winding path in between large boulders that switchbacks  its way  down  the mountainside .  If you kept going this way, through the mountains, you’d end up at Pride’s Call.

Spring isn’t too far off, and a lot of the melt has run off into the river. This particular river starts a lot further up in the mountains, and this low down, it’s practically gushing when spring hits fully.

Beau moves towards the net, to start setting it up, and stops at Dairon’s shake of the head.

‘No,’ the elf says. ‘Hands.’

Beau stares at her, biting back a scathing comment. It’s been a long fucking time since she’s had to catch a fish by hand. The first twenty or so that she goes for slip out of her grasp, and finally –  _finally_ – she manages to keep hold of one. She chucks it into the basket, where there’re already a couple of dozen fish that Dairon has managed to catch.

‘Good,’ Dairon says with a nod. Beau catches six more before they head back up to the monastery, by which point it’s almost mid-morning, and the sun is reflecting back off the snow. Then, they spar. Again.

Beau’s still a little rusty with the new (old) sword, and Dairon gets some strikes in that Beau really should have been able to avoid. It’s bleeding and bruised that she goes to one of the Monk Clerics for healing, before returning to the hot springs.

Her meditation today is a little easier (it’s always easier to empty her mind when she’s exhausted), but there are still a couple of moments where her mind flashes back to Shady Creek Run.

The third day, is the hardest day yet.

All the chewing out that Dairon avoids on the first couple of days, she lets fly with a vengeance on the third day. ‘You need to stop being so reckless,’ she says, and it might be related to the fact that Beau’s just gone for a wild thrust with a fucking wakizashi, or it might be related to the story that Beau had told her about trusting the wrong person and getting murdered for it.

‘I’m used to using a rapier,’ Beau mutters, under her breath. She’d forgotten what it’s like to slash, instead of pierce, to spend so much time defending instead of attacking, to have such a short reach with her blade.

‘Then you are out of practice,’ Dairon says, coolly. It’s supposed to be humbling, but really it just sounds condescending. Of course she’s fucking out of practice. That’s why she’s here.

‘Stop fucking degrading me!’ Beau snaps. She goes in for a riposte, which Dairon easily dodges. The momentum is enough that it sends Beau sprawling into the snow. Her heart is pulsing, and her breath is coming in short and fast.

‘I think it’s time we take a break,’ Dairon says, in that “I’m not mad, I’m just disappointed,” sort of voice. As though she’d been Beau’s mother.

Which is stupid, really, because her mother had only ever just been mad. Hence the mommy issues.

Dairon’s not exactly wrong, though. Even without all the fucked up shit that’s happened over the past couple of months, in leaving the monastery, Beau had definitely fallen out of practice. The muscles that had been lithe and defined on her departure are now soft, and ill-used. She spends her days planning smuggling routes, rather than training, and it’s definitely coming back to bite her now.

Beau gets to her knees, and kind of just stays there, not even bothering to pick up her sword from where it had clattered six feet away. She tries to ignore the burning heat of tears on her cheeks.

_Fucking pathetic._

How has she come to this?

Wiping her face ,  Beau gets to her feet. Her whole body is shaking.

‘Can we…’ Beau says. She trails off. After all, it’s been a very long time since they’d done it. She doubts whether Dairon is still interested in a fuck-up like her.

‘Are you sure that is what you want?’ Dairon sheaths her sword. Her whole demeanor seems to soften.

‘Yes,’ Beau says. It feels like a betrayal, in some sense. Feels more like cheating than anything else she’s ever done, even though there’s not exactly any exclusivity between her, and Yasha, and Jester. Beau casts her glance downwards; she can’t let Dairon see the shame, the pain in her eyes. Dairon steps forward, and Beau looks down, sees the boot-clad feet, feels the kiss that’s pressed to her forehead.

‘Come with me,’ Dairon says.

…

As one of the mainstay monks at the monastery, Dairon’s room is a little nicer.

She is afforded the luxury of a frame for her mattress, in addition to a floor table with pillows to sit on.

Even still, it’s a far cry from Ophelia Mardun’s luxurious bedroom, a far cry even from the suite at the  _Lavish Chateau_ , or the inn in Deastock. Here, perhaps things are different enough that she won’t regress back to that moment. Usually , she’d be wearing a blindfold, but this time, she can’t. She needs to be able to see the room, see that she’s in the monastery of the Kensei monks, rather than the place where she had died.

She is on her knees,  and her hands are free, but there are intricately knotted ropes across her body. For a brief moment, she’s eighteen again, and on her knees in front of Dairon for the first time, in supplication. This had been the start of the dark path she’d started herself on.

Dairon is gentle.

Far gentler than Avantika or Ophelia had been. Gentler than Jester, even. It strikes Beau (no pun intended) that Dairon is very, very experienced at this. She had been experienced six years ago, when she had first taken Beau under her care, and she had probably been experienced even a hundred years ago.

It’s a strangely comforting thought, grounding Beau to reality.  She closes her eyes.

‘I’m going to touch you now,’ Dairon says, simply, but even then Beau still jumps when she feels the warm hand on her shoulder. ‘Is that okay?’

‘Yes,’ Beau breathes. She has to remind herself that Dairon asking for her explicit consent is a good thing, that she’s gotten so used to just submitting to whatever anyone else wanted, that she’s forgotten what it’s like to be asked what _she_ wants.

Dairon’s hands start at Beau’s shoulders. They’ve always been very, very good at the slow build-up, the extensive foreplay, to the point where, in the first few weeks of this arrangement, Beau had cussed the elf out, and been left hanging for hours unfulfilled. 

They move downwards, thumbs caressing her bare nipples, erect in the cold wintery air. Lips press against her clavicle, her chest, her navel, fingers brush her cheek, her neck—Beau freezes slightly, and has to jerk her eyes open to reassure herself where she is.

Not in Ophelia Mardun’s bedroom. Not in Shady Creek Run. The rope chafes against her skin – against her stomach, her breasts, her thighs – but not her wrists. She can smell the freshness of the air, the wax of the candle, hear the sound of someone playing a sitar. Very different smells and sounds to that of Shady Creek Run.

‘Is this okay?’ Dairon asks, sensing Beau’s hesitation. She pulls her hand away entirely.

‘Yes,’ Beau says, after a moment. It is okay. It has to be okay. It can’t _not_ be okay.

Dairon moves her hands back, and Beau doesn’t close her eyes. She watches as Dairon’s hand moves lower and lower, body tensing as the fingers press against her clit.

‘Lay back,’ Dairon says, and Beau obeys without hesitation, and she watches as Dairon lowers her face to meet her fingers. She slides two fingers inside of Beau’s cunt, and crooks them slightly, as her tongue runs a stripe from slit to clit.

On instinct more than anything else, Beau takes her hand, wraps them around the back of Dairon’s head, and urges the elf in closer, harder, faster. When she comes, it’s with a soft little cry, and a splash of liquid.

It’s...nice. Nice enough for the first time coming since getting murdered.

Freeing, certainly.

There’s still a part of her that wishes that it had been with Yasha, or with Jester; with two of the people that had literally gone to the ends of Exandria to bring her home. The mere thought of it brings the tears back to her eyes, and before Beau even realizes it, she’s crying her eyes out.

Her body heaves with great, wracking sobs; the pain, the horror, the utter despair of the last two months coming out all at once. 

Beau doesn’t remember the last time that she’d cried.

Like...properly cried. She certainly hadn’t cried when her parents had died, and before that…

She barely notices as Dairon wraps a blanket around her, and pulls her in close.

It’s in their embrace that Beau eventually falls asleep.


	13. Chapter Thirteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter:  
> Discussions of trauma/post trauma  
> Discussions of sexual violence  
> Angst

Chapter Thirteen

The next day, Beau feels more at ease than she has in weeks. Clearly all it had taken to get her head back on her shoulders was a good fucking.

Go figure.

When they train in the morning, Dairon doesn’t sigh once, which is probably a first. Beau knows she missed a decent amount of openings, but she executes a pretty fucking sweet Kesi Giri that nearly takes Dairon’s head off.

Beau’s pretty pumped when they break for lunch, but the clarity has laid other thoughts bare inside her mind.

‘Is it weird?’ Beau asks. They’re sitting cross-legged, on a mat, eating fish and rice.

‘Is what weird?’ Dairon asks. They’re back to sounding patient again, which makes Beau think that maybe they’d need their tryst as much as Beau had.

Beau struggles to find the words. What she wants to ask is “is it weird that I’ve come to define so much of my life by sex,” only saying it like that seems a little crass.

Maybe: “is it weird that I kind of dig being told what to do by someone that I trust, and I hate that part of that has been taken away from me.”

‘I don’t know,’ she says, eventually. Dairon gives her a look. There’s a shrewd sort of look on her face.

‘We will continue training after lunch,’ is all Dairon says, and they do. Beau’s strikes are still a little off the mark, but they’re finding their target with more consistency than they had yesterday, which is something.

Every day she spends here, her mind is getting a little clearer, her thoughts a little more centered, but she knows she cannot stay forever. The monastery is its own little bubble, far away from the rest of the world, and Beau will have to return to face the music if she’s ever going to properly heal.

Every day, they talk about  _things_ a little more. 

‘Here’s the thing,’ Beau says, the next morning, during calligraphy practice. Part of her feels a little bad about the way she’s unloading onto Dairon, but Dairon doesn’t push back. If anything, she seems to welcome it. ‘Everything I did, whatever I did, even when I wasn’t in control, I was always in control.’

Dairon raises an eyebrow at the phrasing, but says nothing. Beau tries to find a better way to phrase it. ‘Okay...Like...Even when people had me tied up, or strapped down, or blindfolded, it was always my decision, and I could always choose to walk away if it wasn’t going the way I wanted. Which I did. Several times. Being tied up, and unable to escape, and then being...’

_Murdered_ is the word she’s thinking of, but instead, she says, ‘ _Violated_ .’ Not that he had done anything sexual. But hands wrapped around the throat is such an intimate way of killing someone that she can’t help but see it as sort of sexual anyway. She hadn’t been able to assert her control. Hadn’t been able to walk away.

There’s a hollow look on Dairon’s face, and for a moment, Beau thinks she might break something. The grip on her pen  _is_ unnaturally tight.

The moment passes.

‘It’s a horrible thing that happened to you,’ Dairon says, eventually. Then, in a low sort of voice. ‘I wish that there was something that I could do to ease your pain.’ It’s a strange turn of phrase for the elf, who isn’t usually one to talk about “wishes” and “dreams,” because they’re intangible, abstract sort of things. 

Beau doesn’t really think more of it until a couple of days later, when Dairon says, ‘I have to go away for a few days,’ one morning, over breakfast. Beau can’t help but feel a wave of horror wash over her. It passes. ‘I have business to attend to.’

It’s not as though Dairon’s the only monk here. Not even the only monk that Beau’s been training with. It’s just that for so long, her mind has associated Dairon with security, with safety, even though they spend half their time fighting.

Beau takes the opportunity to let her body recover, spending more time than is probably sensible in the hot springs, goes over her katas, and generally takes a bit of a break.

When Dairon returns, she seems a little calmer about things, and Beau is torn between wanting to speculate, and not wanting to clog up her mind with such things all over again. 

In any case, they keep training.

It’s another two weeks after that before things change. They change in a way that Beau had sort have been expecting, but she’s still shocked from her meditation when she hears a familiar voice, calling her name.

A voice that she’s been aching to hear, and yet also, simultaneously, hoping that she never hears again. For a moment, she thinks she’s imagining it, that it’s a by-product of thinking about a different time that she’d heard it.

Jester.

Beau’s eyes snap open.

The tiefling is dressed for the cold, but is not carrying anything. Her backpack is on one of Yasha’s shoulders, along with another backpack, and the enormous greataxe. Yasha has a look on her face like she climbs to nearly impossible to access monasteries on a daily basis; the only sign that the cold is even affecting her is the fact that a few of her braids are covered in frost.

Trembling slightly, Beau gets to her feet. Before she can even say anything, Jester has run up and wrapped her in a hug.

Beau flinches. She obviously hadn’t planned it, and what’s worse is that Jester  _notices_ . There’s a sad little look on her face as she pulls away, and Beau wishes like anything that she could help make it go away, but…

But she’s fucking weak.

She looks down, just to avoid flinching again.

‘I, uh...thanks for coming.’ It almost sounds as though she’s thanking them for coming to a dinner party that she’s hosting, rather than following her on a ridiculous journey north through inhospitable mountains.

The fact that they’re here...somehow that means more to her than anything else. Means more to her than anything that anyone has ever done for her in her life. Resurrecting her had been nothing compared to this. Because she’s run away so many fucking times, and this is the first time that anyone has bothered to follow her.

‘Why wouldn’t we?’ Yasha asks. As though it’s ridiculous for Beau to even consider that they wouldn’t follow her here. It’s weird; the Yasha of a year ago wouldn’t have thought twice about letting Beau take whatever time she’d needed to take.

‘I dunno,’ Beau says with a shrug. ‘I guess because the Gentlemen and Ophelia Mardun are still out there, and won’t be very happy if they find out I’m alive.’

‘Ophelia Mardun is dead,’ Yasha tells her, and there’s a moment of strained shock. Beau’s not sad, by any stretch, but she is surprised. She looks over, and realizes that Dairon is standing at the edge of the garden, listening in on their conversation. She turns away suddenly, when she realizes that she’s been noticed. ‘Someone slit her throat.’ There’s a question in her words, but it seems to fade. Beau’s expression hasn’t shifted away from shock. She has an idea of what the question might be, though.

She turns to Dairon, perhaps a little pointedly. The elf lifts her chin, as though daring any of them to comment. That short little trip away from the monastery after Beau had revealed a little too much makes a bit more sense now.

Beau’s not sure whether to feel grateful, or humiliated that someone had had to go and commit murder for her. She settles on grateful, with maybe a slight edge of shame.

It’s strange that even after missing their presence for so long, Beau has no idea what to say to Jester and to Yasha. Has no idea how things are supposed to move forward. In lieu of doing anything like dealing with the situation, she instead leads her friends (lovers?) to the hot springs so that they can warm up, and clean off, and then goes to make lunch.

‘Beau—’ Jester starts to say, as she leaves, but Beau doesn’t turn around.

‘I can do that, if you want to be with them,’ Dairon says, in a low voice, as Beau starts descaling fish in the kitchen of the monastery. Though they haven’t had any discussions regarding the matter, Dairon appears to have (correctly?) interpreted the nature of the relationship.

‘No, it’s fine,’ Beau says. Her eyes follow Dairon’s to her hands, and she realizes that she’s shaking. She drops the knife. Clenches her fist. Closes her eyes.

‘I uh...I know it’s a little dark to thank someone for committing murder,’ Beau says. ‘But...thank-you, I guess.’

She would have much preferred to do it herself, but she’s certainly not in a position to look a gift horse in the mouth.

There’s a long sort of pause.

‘I could not have gone on any further knowing that someone who had hurt you so much was still out there.’

Another pause.

‘Zadash was too well protected.’

Meaning that Dairon had tried to go after the Gentleman as well, but failed.

‘Go,’ Dairon urges. ‘Be with them. I will finish this.’

‘Being near me puts them in danger,’ Beau says. _Not just from the Gentleman_.

‘Your capacity for self-punishment is unending,’ Dairon says, wryly. ‘It’s a wonder you ever had to find someone to cause you pain in the first place, given how eager you are to inflict it upon yourself.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Beau demands, though she already has a pretty good idea of exactly what it means.

‘By all means, you should continue to allow people to punish you if you enjoy it. But do not ever let yourself think that you deserve it.’ They pause. ‘You have two...friends that love you very much, that would rather put their own lives in danger than to see you unhappy. You are allowed to be happy, Beauregard. Do not let anyone tell you different.’

‘What if—’ she starts, and she chokes on her words. ‘What if I get them killed?’ _What if_ I _hurt them?_

‘They are neither of them weak; one is a powerful cleric, the other a herald of the Storm Lord. Do not underestimate their capacity to protect themselves, as they could not you. Allow them to make their own decisions.’

Beau doesn’t bother to ask how Dairon knows so much about her friends. It occurs to her that the elf has probably been keeping tabs on her, even from the monastery. She’s not sure how she feels about that.

In any case, she steels herself, and joins Jester and Yasha in the hot springs. They’re both still sort of standing around awkwardly, and brighten visibly when Beau returns. Beau, for her part, says nothing at all, but starts stripping.

They seem to take their lead from her, setting down their things, and taking off their clothes.

It’s strangely a little more comfortable than Beau had expected. She’s naked, sure, but she’s also in a hot spring, bright light streaming down on them. Completely different to the place that she’d died. So all she really has to do is stay outdoors and not let either of them touch her. Solid plan.

‘I’m uh...sorry for running off like that,’ she tells them, after a few minutes of pained silence. She gets the impression that they’d both been waiting for her to be comfortable enough to talk. ‘Trying to get my head clear, you know?’

‘Sure,’ Yasha agrees. Jester seems a little confused, but doesn’t say anything. Beau knows that Jester is a person that gets her strength, her energy from the people around her. To lock yourself away, to not want to talk...It’s a concept that she clearly doesn’t quite get, but she’s trying. She’s trying so hard, and it pains Beau that she can’t...well connect in the way that Jester wants to.

‘And...’ Jester says, hesitantly. ‘Has it helped?’

‘Well...I guess,’ Beau says. She frowns. She’s certainly a damn sight better than she had been in those first weeks, but at the same time, she knows that recovering from trauma isn’t exactly a quick process. After the Iron Shepherds, after her disastrous return to Kamordah, she’d had the same sort of problems. ‘I’m still a little shaken, funnily enough.’ She hadn’t meant for her words to sound so passive-aggressive, but Jester looks a little thrown, and the fact that she doesn’t ask any more questions means that Beau had accidentally struck a nerve.

She doesn’t even know how to begin to apologize; for that, and for everything else that she’s put them through. 

Doesn’t know how to begin to apologize for the fact that they’d dropped everything their lives to nurse her back to health, and she’d repaid them by running off in the middle of the night.

And now, they’ve spent the last five days climbing through wind and sleet and snow to a mountain top monastery, only for Beau to be...well, be herself.

“Sorry” doesn’t seem like enough.


	14. Chapter Fourteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter:  
> Beau/Yasha  
> Post Traumatic Stress  
> Nightmares  
> Masturbation  
> Breathplay  
> Safe-word use  
> Angst

Chapter Fourteen

They stay at the monastery for two weeks.

During that time, scarcely a word is spoken about what had happened. In fact, there aren’t a great deal of words exchanged at all, but Beau is, at the very least, speaking in full sentences.

Jester’s not sure how to feel.

Beau...seems okay.

She’s not like…great, or anything, but being here, at the monastery seems to have done wonders for her recovery. Being away from Jester and Yasha seems to have done wonders for her recovery.

Jester tries not to feel a little upset about that.

It’s not exactly surprising, after all. Beau’s known Yasha a lot longer, and they know each other a lot better. Jester...she’s kind of just the third wheel in this relationship.  She can’t help but notice that Beau still shies away whenever Jester looks at her, still flinches whenever Jester touches her, in a way that she doesn’t with Yasha.

Jester can’t help but notice, too, the way Beau keeps trying to drag Yasha away, to be alone with her. They’d made a deal though, before coming here, that neither of them will let Beau be alone with them, because they know she’ll separate them to try and convince them to leave.

This seems to frustrate Beau to no end, and some days she will go off on her own to avoid having to interact with either of them.

‘Maybe I should leave,’ Jester says one night, after Beau has gone to sleep. 

‘Why would you do that?’

‘I mean...’ Jester says. ‘It’s so _obvious_ that Beau doesn’t want me here – that she only wants to be here with you.’

‘I don’t think that’s true,’ Yasha says, but Yasha has always been a very bad liar. Neither of them want it to be true, but that doesn’t stop it from being true. Still, when Jester suggests that they maybe leave the monastery and go to Kamordah, Beau at least seems to consider it. If she’s willing to do that much, then she’s less likely to run away from them again.

It’s another week or so before they do leave, and in that time, Beau convinces them to join her in training. Jester’s never used a sword before, so even learning that much is interesting enough. Yasha’s a bit more experienced, but she’s used to heavier weapons. The  sword looks comically small in Yasha’s grip, and she swings with far too much power to be properly effective. But, they have a good time anyway, and Beau’s the most energetic and animated that Jester has seen her when she’s fighting.

‘Fighting, sex,’ Beau says, shrugging. ‘Same coin, y’know?’ There’s an interesting sort of silence. Beau hasn’t really shown any interest in sex (though Jester suspects she’s been sleeping with Dairon), and neither Jester nor Yasha has even considered pressing the matter.

The ball is very much in Beau’s court, and will probably stay there for a while.  In fact, the ball is probably sitting in a corner doing nothing while Beau does her own thing. Maybe one day she’ll realize that the ball’s even there.

For the most part, the journey to Kamordah is a silent one. The only exception is the last night of the trek, when they’re camped on the side of the mountain, and the snow picks up into a biting cold blizzard.

Jester _Stone Shapes_ a barrier against the wind, and Yasha lights a fire, but they still shiver in their bedrolls that night. Jester falls asleep relatively quickly, but she’s woken in the early hours of the morning by a shifting body beside her.

Beau is writhing against her bedroll, gasping even in her sleep. She’s having a nightmare.

Jester’s had a few nightmares of her own over the past few weeks – not nearly bad enough to warrant telling anyone about them, but but enough that she wishes someone had woken her. She puts a cold hand to Beau’s cheek, and tries to gently coax her awake.

Beau’s eyes snap open.

There’s half a second where Jester’s trying to give a reassuring sort of look, but Beau’s brain doesn’t seem to have caught up, because she screams before Jester can even say anything. It’s not a sound that Jester’s heard very often. Even when Beau had screamed in the middle of...things, it had never been this raw, this fearful.

‘It’s okay,’ she says, letting her hand brush the cheek. ‘It’s just me.’

Beau thrashes even harder at that, enough hat Yasha is on her feet, ax in her hand, and wings bursting from her shoulders. She looks down, a little startled, and sees the scene laid before her. Her face softens, and she drops the ax.

‘Let me,’ she says. She doesn’t push Jester out of the way, but Jester moves anyway. The change in Beau’s demeanor feels immediate, but it probably takes at least fifteen seconds for the screams to calm to whimpering gasp. She leans into Yasha’s body, taking deep breaths of air, and pressing her eyes closed. ‘It’s okay,’ Yasha murmurs; the same words that Jester had used, and yet somehow ten times more effective. Jester tries not to be hurt by that. It’s not about her, after all.

‘Sorry,’ Beau murmurs. Her eyes are still closed. ‘Nightmare.’ As though it hadn’t been obvious.

The next night, at least, they make it to Kamordah, where it’s warm, and dry, and relatively safe. Jester wonders whether she should keep going, back to Nicodranas. The few messages that she’s sent Blude suggest that some of her regular clients are getting a little antsy about her absence.

After a dinner during which they all eat a copious amount of food, Jester pulls Yasha aside. ‘I think I should go,’ she says, and it breaks her heart to say it. ‘I don’t think Beau wants me around right now.’

‘Jester—’ Yasha looks a little forlorn, a little hopeless.

‘You saw how she was last night, screaming when she saw me...She only ever really wanted you, Yasha.’

‘ _I_ want you,’ Yasha says, a little doubtfully, as though her words might not be enough to make Jester stay. She pulls Jester into a hug.‘Jester...I know Beau is going through a tough time right now, but...I want you here, even if she...’ _Doesn’t_. The word doesn’t fall from Yasha’s lips, but then, it doesn’t need to. ‘Let me talk to her. Maybe we can figure out if there’s a problem.’

Jester’s not entirely convinced.

…

Beau is upstairs in the master bedroom.

It’s well away from all the other happenings of the house, and it’s where Beau has been since they’d arrived in Kamordah, save mealtimes. The fact that she’s joining them for meals is probably a good thing, Yasha thinks.

She knocks softly on the door. There’s no answer.

‘It’s Yasha,’ she says. There’s a long pause.

‘Come in,’ Beau says, finally. Yasha opens the door, and is half surprised to see that Beau is sprawled out naked on the sheets, two fingers inside herself. Yasha freezes.

‘Oh,’ she says. ‘I can—’

‘Don’t be stupid,’ Beau says. ‘Come here.’

Yasha hesitates. She can’t deny that this is, technically progress. It’s the first time that Beau’s shown any sort of interest in sexual activity, even if it’s a solo act. Feeling like she’s betraying Jester, Yasha moves towards the bed.

‘Can you give me a hand?’ Beau asks. ‘I’ve been trying for like...half an hour, and I can’t get myself off.’

There’s a long pause. Too long, because Beau says, in a frustrated sort of voice, ‘Come on, Yash...’

Yasha leans down, and presses a kiss to Beau’s lips. Beau grabs her by the waist, and pulls her onto the bed.

They just kiss for a few moments, before Beau takes Yasha’s hands. At first, Yasha thinks she’s going to direct them towards her breasts, but instead, she just holds them for a moment. ‘Um,’ Beau says. ‘I want...’ She pauses. Closes her eyes. ‘Can you like...strangle me?’

The silence is Yasha’s answer. She’s so stunned by the question that she can’t even bring herself to verbalize the word “no.”

‘I just…I feel like if I associate it with something good, rather than something bad...it’ll help, right?’ Beau continues, clearly sensing Yasha’s reservations.

Yasha’s not so sure about that. The look on Beau’s face is one of utter desperation as she pulls Yasha’s hands down towards her throat.

Yasha feels uncertain. ‘Beau, I—’

‘Please,’ Beau says, and it’s in the saddest voice that Yasha’s ever heard. ‘Please, Yasha, I need this.’ Against her better judgment, she starts to apply pressure.

‘Tighter,’ Beau says, and Yasha waits half a second before Beau pulls her hands down even further. Yasha’s strangled enough people in her life to know that she’s effectively blocking the airway. Beau is choking for air, and Yasha’s just about to pull way when Beau just manages to gasp out a, ‘Cinnamon,’ and Yasha jumps back, as though she’s just touched a hot flame. 

‘Beau, I’m sorry—’ Yasha says, immediately. ‘I shouldn’t have—’

Beau shakes her head, coughing. ‘No,’ she says. ‘You did exactly what I asked you to do. Don’t be sorry that I’m so fucking weak.’

Yasha pulls Beau into her, holds her tight. The smaller woman is shivering, even though the fire is blazing.  Yasha feels a pang of sorrow, and of regret that she’d even considered agreeing to Beau’s request.

‘I’m sorry,’ Beau murmurs, into Yasha’s chest. ‘I shouldn’t have asked you to do that.’

‘It’s okay,’ Yasha says, even though – and she won’t admit it – she’s a little shaken, too. ‘Do you want me to get Jester?’ Jester’s always been better at this “comforting” sort of thing.

‘No,’ Beau says, a little too quickly. ‘Can you just...hold me for a little bit?’

Yasha does, for a time, and then she asks the question that she’s been having trouble finding the words for. In the end, she decides to go for the direct approach.

‘Why are you avoiding Jester?’ she asks.

She half expects Beau to talk around the point, like she sometimes does, introduce half lies and twisted truths into the conversation. To her surprise, Beau answers straight away, and its as forthright an answer as Yasha has ever heard.

‘Every time I look at her, I see his face,’ Beau admits, after a few minutes of pained silence.

‘Whose face?’ Yasha asks, frowning.

‘The Gentleman,’ Beau says, and it’s in that moment that Yasha realizes who had killed her. ‘He...I was with Ophelia Mardun, you know, doing... _that_. And then he...’ She put her hands to her throat. ‘I couldn’t get out of those fucking knots to try and save myself. And now every fucking time I see blue, I…’ she trails off. Yasha feels a sharp blade of pain and sorrow rising in her chest. ‘I remember dying. I just thought if I could expose myself to all the shit that happened, it’ll get easier. Hence the...’ She touches her throat again. ‘His hands were so fucking cold. Last night, I...’

It takes a moment, but Yasha manages to put two and two together. Jester had woken Beau in the middle of a nightmare about dying.

She shakes herself out of the stupor. ‘But I can’t fucking tell her that, can I? She’ll do something stupid, like...try to dye her skin, or something.  When I’m outside, it’s not as bad. Maybe only if I’m not expecting her, or...’  She rubs her wrists together. ‘ I just want things to go back to the way they were, before I went and got myself killed, like a fucking idiot.’ She sobs slightly, and presses herself deeper into Yasha’s embrace.

If Yasha had wanted to kill the Gentleman before, that’s nothing compared to what she feels now. She’s half inclined to drop everything, and go straight to Zadash to kill the man with her bare hands. But Beau needs her right now.  _Jester_ needs her right now. They all sort of maybe need each other right now.

‘I have an idea,’ Yasha says, slowly. ‘If you trust me.’ It’s not much of an idea, but more than anything, they need to clear up any misunderstandings so that Jester doesn’t run away in the middle of the night. She doesn’t expect Beau to answer straight away, but for once in her life, Yasha is surprised.

‘Yes,’ Beau says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Gentleman is probably still Jester's father in this, but she never got around to asking her mother about it, so I imagine it would be a great deal angstier if Jester ever found out that her father murdered her lover.


	15. Chapter Fifteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter:
> 
> Yasha/Jester  
> Beau/Yasha/Jester  
> Voyeurism  
> Masturbation  
> A fuckton of Cunnilingus  
> Face-sitting  
> Discussions of post-traumatic stress  
> Fingering

Chapter Fifteen

Beau hears nothing but the silence.

She is wearing a silk blindfold, and has her eyes closed for good measure. It won’t help with the images inside her head, but it’s a start.

It’s so fucking stupid that the thought of wearing a blindfold hadn’t even occurred to her. It’s not as though she’s never worn a blindfold during sex before, but then, this is so much more than just sex. This is...this is the mere act of being able to have a conversation with Jester without freaking out, without thinking that she’s about to die all over again.

Beau can feel Jester’s hand on her shoulder, far enough from her neck that it doesn’t freak her out too much. It’s a touch that she’s missed so much, that she’s ached for, yearned for, in the time since her  _Raising_ . She loves Yasha dearly, but it’s the three of them together that makes them unstoppable.

‘Hey, Beau,’ Jester says, gently. In spite of the blindfold, Jester is standing behind her, her voice soft in Beau’s ears. Beau freezes a little, and Yasha squeezes her hand. _It’s okay_ , Beau tells herself. It’s just Jester. It’s _fine_.

Jester’s has enough tact, in this moment to not ask why Beau’s already naked.

‘Hey, Jes,’ Beau steels herself, and smiles.

‘Can I kiss you?’

‘Sure.’ Beau angles her head up and back. She starts a little at the touch of Jester’s lips against hers.

‘I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable,’ Jester says, and Beau shakes her head.

‘No. No, Jes, it’s not your fault, it’s—’ Beau hesitates. To tell Jester what had happened is to drag her into this world that she has, up until this point, had no part of. Yasha had been with Beau since the beginning, but Jester is...well, innocent.

At the same time, though, it feels selfish, as though Beau’s sparing her own feelings, her own discomforts more than she’s trying to protect Jester. She remembers Dairon’s words, about how Jester is a powerful cleric in her own right.

And she tells the story.

Jester’s grip on her shoulder tightens when she starts, and Jester gives a gasping sob when Beau describes how the Gentleman had wrapped his hands around her throat. By the end of it, they’re both crying. Yasha hasn’t said anything, but Beau can feel her grip, just as tight.

‘I’m sorry,’ Jester sobs. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘What’re you being sorry for?’ Beau mutters, resting her head against Jester’s shoulder. ‘It’s not your fault I’m an idiot. It’s not your fault you’re blue.’

Gritting her teeth, she pulls off the blindfold, and turns to face Jester. It takes her brain a few seconds to catch up with her eyes, and she’s frozen for about six seconds.

‘I want to...’ Beau starts. She frowns. ‘I want to be with you, but I can’t...I just...’ She closes her eyes tightly.

‘I mean,’ Jester says, a little doubtfully. ‘I do have a _Hat of Disguise_.’ 

There’s a moment of silence.

Huh.

That seems like it’s an even easier solution that Beau closing her eyes, and she absolutely fucking kicks herself that she hadn’t thought of it. That she hadn’t even  _bothered_ to think of solutions instead of wallowing in self-pity, and letting Jester think that Beau hates her.

Jester runs off to go and get it. When she returns, she looks like a completely different person.

There’s a slight pause. ‘Oh,’ Yasha says.

‘Yeah, there’s like...a ton of people that want me to look like other people when we fuck.’ Jester pauses, and shifts back to her own form. ‘My momma never had to wear one, but then, people liked her because she was the Ruby of the Sea, so it didn’t really make any sense to wear it. I could look like anyone you want; that sexy pirate captain, that super cute barmaid you told me about—’ Beau decides to cut her off before it gets out of hand.

‘How about you like...just change your skin color,’ Beau asks, which, normally she’d be a little weird about (more than once, she’s had people kind of put off by her own skin color). Jester gives her a look of awed surprise.

‘Oh my god!’ she says. ‘I totally never thought about doing that. This whole time, I could have been walking around _pink_!’

Beau grins, in spite of herself. The grin widens when Jester adjusts the hat, and turns herself a violent shade of pink.

For a moment, Beau feels like she’s fallen asleep and woken up in another world.

She hesitates. ‘Could I maybe...just watch you guys for a bit?’

It’s not that she’s not ready for sex (not like she hasn’t had sex since she died). It’s just that these encounters that she’s had with Yasha and Jester have been...well, pretty heavily charged, compared to the sex she’s had with Dairon, for example. Beau’s not sure that Jester is even capable of low energy sex.

‘Of course!’ Jester says, brightly.

The bed is big enough for Beau to settle herself, cross-legged, at the head of it, while Jester and Yasha start doing their thing at the foot of it. ‘Just pretend I’m not here,’ Beau says, but she can’t help but notice that both of them keep on sneaking covert glances back at her, wanting to make sure she’s okay.

She’s fine (for now), but she appreciates the gesture anyway, watching in silence as they take their clothes off (with a little flourish on Jester’s part), and get down to business.

For a moment, it’s like watching Yasha with someone else; someone bright pink. Yasha, too, seems to be a little perturbed by the situation, eyes transfixed at the space between Jester’s legs. ‘It’s just so...pink,’ she says, staring.

‘I mean,’ Beau says, reasonably. ‘Yours is pink.’ Yasha looks surprised, as if this is new information to her. ‘Like…a lighter pink, but still pink.’

‘Oh,’ Yasha says, but she still looks a little rattled.

‘I think a lighter blue might be okay,’ Beau says. In fact, it might be better. Work her way up to the real thing. 

‘You sure?’ Beau nods.

Jester concentrates for a moment, before her skin turns a very pale blue. Like the sky on a warm summer’s day. Very different from that bright, dark blue of the Gentleman.

Beau freezes for half a second, but the moment passes.

_This is good_ , she reminds herself.  _This is fine_ . This isn’t the Gentleman, or Ophelia Mardun, this is Jester and Yasha. They will keep her safe.

She watches, quietly, and Yasha lowers her head down between Jester’s thighs, and, judging by the suddenly ecstatic look on Jester’s face, suckles her clit. It’s one thing among many that Yasha is very, very good at.

Beau can feel a familiar heat rising throughout her body, in her chest, and between her legs, that is only amplified by the moans that Jester makes as she clutches at the bedsheets.

Beau’s pretty sure she’s dripping straight onto the sheets now, and she moves her hand down there to at least give herself some gratification while she watches. She’s about halfway to completion when Jester lets out her loudest moan yet, and her whole body relaxes into a post-coital bliss.

_Ah, fuck_ . 

‘Do you want us to...’ Yasha starts, and then hesitates. Beau’s fine, for now, but she can’t guarantee that won’t change the moment that they start doing things. But, she knows she’s not going to get anywhere at all if she doesn’t keep trying to move forward.

‘Yes,’ Beau says, her breath catching in her throat. There’s nothing in the world that she has ever wanted more. She reaches out to pull Yasha and Jester up towards her on the bed. For a few minutes it’s just a whirlwind of hands and tongues and teeth over her body. Then, Jester moves a little higher, and Yasha moves a little lower; Jester is sitting on Beau’s chest, legs splayed open, and Yasha wastes no time in letting her teeth graze the edge of Beau’s clit.

‘Is this okay?’ Jester asks. She takes both of Beau’s hands in hers.

‘Sure,’ Beau says.

‘You can finger me, if you want,’ Jester adds, almost nonchalantly, as if she’s asking if Beau wants eggs for breakfast.

‘No, it’s okay,’ Beau says, and it truly is okay. ‘You can...you can move up a bit higher. I can handle it.’ Having someone sit on her face is a completely different kettle of fish to having someone wrap their hands around her through. While Jester generally runs a little colder than most people Beau knows, it doesn’t hold as true for her thighs, or for anything else that’s below the waist.

S till, Jester hesitates, until Beau puts her hands on the tiefling’s ass, and coaxes her upwards. Her breath catches a little in her throat at the slightly darker blue of Jester’s pussy, but the moment passes.

Beau takes her time, making the pass back and forth with her tongue before finally giving the clit some attention. Jester’s still soaked through from Yasha doing almost exactly the same thing five minutes ago, and the taste is sharp and tangy against Beau’s tongue. The taste is always a surprise, because in her brain, she always expect to taste something sweet and sugary.

Beau’s body jerks suddenly, as Yasha hits her clit just right, and Beau’s already on edge enough that she comes with a gasp against Jester, who, in the heat of the moment, grasps at the back of Beau’s head as she rides out the orgasm.

Caught in the post-coital bliss, Beau hadn’t even considered that it might have been a problem until Jester apologizes for it. ‘No, it’s fine,’ she says, wiping her face. ‘Yash, come here...’ Yasha’s brought both of them to a climax now, but hasn’t come herself, which is really no way to end the night. Beau sits up, and pulls Yasha into a kiss, even as she grinds against the aasimar’s thigh,  edging her way inwards . Scissoring is awkward enough that they’ve never really tried it, but Beau  likes that intimate sort of feeling anyway. She slips her hand down between them, and Yasha’s so godsdamned wet that two of Beau’s fingers slide in without resistance.

‘Oh, Beau,’ Yasha breathes, pulling Beau in towards her. Jester looks a little unsure of what she needs to be doing, until Beau pulls her hand down towards Yasha. She slides a finger in alongside Beau’s, and together they bring Yasha to a quiet peak.

The three of them lie in bed, unspeaking, just reveling in each other’s presence for a time.

Finally, Beau says the thing that she’s been trying to figure out how to say for the past week or so.

‘I need your help.’ She pauses. It’s a big thing that she’s going to ask them. Yasha will probably say yes; she’s done it before, after all, and that had been before sex was involved. Jester, though, is another matter entirely. If she helps with this, then there’s no going back.

‘Anything,’ Jester says, immediately. Beau holds up a hand.

‘Just...’ she says. ‘Hear me out, then make a decision. In fact, take your time to make a decision.’ A pause. A deep sort of breath. ‘I want you to help me kill the Gentleman.’

‘Oh,’ Jester says. A pause. ‘I thought you were like...going to ask about something big.’ She looks at Yasha. ‘I mean, we were sort of already planning how to do that anyway.’

_Oh._

Well, okay then.

They probably haven’t been talking about the thing she’s going to bring up next; the idea that’s been mulling through her head as the only way they can conceivably do this without anyone else getting killed.

‘I have an idea.’ Beau is frowning. ‘But you’re both going to absolutely hate it. In fact, _I_ hate it, so I don’t know why I’m even suggesting it.’ There’s a pained sort of silence. ‘We need to send me in as bait.’

‘No,’ Yasha and Jester say in unison, before Beau has even closed her mouth.

‘Absolutely not,’ Yasha adds. She looks...almost exasperated. Definitely not the kind of expression Beau has ever seen on her face before. ‘We just got you back, we’re not losing you again.’

Beau is feeling a little bit exasperated herself. She’s a fucking crime boss. They run a godsdamned drug smuggling ring. It’s not as though it’d be the first time she’s been in danger.

‘I think...’ she says, a little uncomfortably. ‘He’d always intended for you to _Raise_ me. I think he’d want to...keep me alive a little longer if he’s killing me for real.’

She’s not sure if she’d expected them to be mollified by this, but they are absolutely not. If anything they’re even less happy at the possibility that the Gentleman might imprison and torture her.

Beau’s not particularly thrilled at the prospect herself, but she knows for certain that she’s the only one that can do this.

‘I’m sure there’s a way that we can do this without resorting to putting you in danger again,’ Yasha says, with Jester nodding fervently in agreement; Beau would be quite appreciative of how much they care for her, if she hadn’t needed this so badly.

She knows that with him still out there, she’ll never truly be able to heal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys writing the logistics of threesomes is hard.
> 
> Also, my buffer for this story is now empty, so updates may take a little longer 'cos I'll have to write everything from scratch.


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter:  
> Beau/Yasha/Jester  
> Breathplay  
> Autoerotic asphyxiation  
> Unsafe BDSM practices (including failing to check if a partner is properly comfortable with a sexual practice)  
> Fingering  
> Discussions of masochism
> 
> Disclaimer: Do not try this at home. Seriously. Or, if you do try this at home, do your research and work with a willing and experienced partner. Don't do a Beau.

Chapter Sixteen

Over breakfast the next morning, the discussion continues. In order to be able to put together a plan, they need to know who is going to be able to help in a mission to infiltrate the Gentleman’s operation.

‘Who do we know that we can trust?’ Beau’s fork hovers over her scrambled eggs. It’s a fair question. Most of the people that she trusts are already in the kitchen.

‘Dairon?’

A pause. ‘Yes.’

‘Avantika?’

Another pause. A longer pause. ‘I don’t know. Doesn’t seem her style. Plus I don’t particularly want to be in her debt.’

‘What about the rest of your people?’

Beau bites her lip. It would be a lot easier if she had some of her people as backup, but the more people that knew about their plan, the less likely it was to run smoothly. Not to mention... ‘I don’t want collateral damage. We go in swords swinging, there’s a good chance a lot of people are going to die. If we’re going to do this, it’ll have to be a stealth mission.’ Stealthily kill the most powerful guy on the continent.

Shouldn’t be too hard.

After all, it’s not like they can lure him into a trap the same way he had done to her. They might be able to use the power vacuum in the north to their advantage, depending on how much things have changed up there in the last few weeks.

For all they know, Ophelia Mardun has been replaced by someone ten times worse.

‘Kara, maybe,’ she says, already knowing that Kara is still suffering the after-effects of what the Gentleman had done. It’s a bit of a toss-up as to whether she’ll want to get her revenge, or whether she’ll want to stay as far away as possible from the whole situation.

‘Five people,’ Yasha says. ‘It’s not a lot.’

‘No,’ Beau admits. ‘But, if we’re going in quietly, and if we have a good enough plan, five is enough. He won’t have nearly the same numbers as when we took him out last time.’

They talk around the point for an hour or so, not really reach anything close to a plan. In the end, they decide to think on it individually for a day or two, before reconvening.

Frustrated, tired, a little bit horny, Beau goes upstairs, leaving Jester and Yasha alone in the kitchen.

...

Jester stares at Beau’s retreating form. ‘She’s angry.

‘Yes,’ Yasha agrees.

‘She’s angry because we won’t let her go in alone.’

A pause.

‘Yes.’

Jester seems to hesitate. ‘I don’t think her plan is that bad of an idea.’ There’s a brief moment where Yasha feels the anger rising, and her eyes narrow into a bit of a glare, and Jester apparently decides that she needs to finish that thought. ‘I mean, we have a Hat of Disguise,’ Jester points out. ‘We could use it for more than just sex. Maybe one of us could go in disguised as Beau.’

Yasha frowns. It’s not a bad idea, but the plan will fall apart the moment either of them speaks. Not to mention they’re not exactly the best at infiltration. Then, a thought hits her.

‘What about Dairon?’ 

Jester tilts her head slightly, thinking.

Neither of them know Dairon particularly well, save that Beau seems to have a very long history with her. To ask her to do something that would be tantamount to suicide...well, it’s a big ask.

‘I mean,’ Jester says. ‘We can try, right?’

She scrunches up her eyes, and  _Sends_ a message. ‘Hey Dairon, it’s Jester. We’ve got an idea about infiltrating the Gentleman’s hideout, but I think we’re gonna need your help. It’ll be dangerous, though—’

‘Twenty five,’ Yasha tells her. 

There’s a brief moment where they wait around for a response, and Yasha sees a sudden look of surprise in Jester’s eyes. ‘She says “Yes, of course. I can be in Kamordah within the week. I assume that is where you are maintaining a base for the time being.”’ Yasha’s not sure what accent Jester’s trying to put on, but it sounds nothing like Dairon. Yet another reason why neither of them should be the ones to do the actual infiltration.

Jester closed her eyes, and  _Sent_ one last message. ‘Yes, come to Kamordah. We can discuss our plans when you get here.’ A pause. ‘Safe travels.’

‘She’s going to be upset when she finds out we called for Dairon without her,’ Yasha comments. Jester’s eyes widen, as though she hadn’t even considered that.

‘Oh, shit,’ Jester mutters. ‘She’s gonna be pissed.’

…

Now that they’re in Kamordah, and, more importantly, now that Beau’s starting to...not get over, but starting to work on her issues, they have the opportunity to have a little fun in between planning sessions.

After the not entirely disastrous one of that morning, Beau goes upstairs, and masturbates, just to relieve a bit of tension.

She’s in a much better mood, then, when she goes and finds Yasha and Jester. They look a little guilty, which means they’ve been making plans without her. Beau should be pissed, but she’s pretty sure she can use their guilt to get what she needs, so it’s a bit of a wash.

‘Hey, can I, uh...show you guys something?’

She leads them upstairs into one of the spare bedrooms, and unlocks the closet door.

‘Welcome to the Closet of Shame,’ Beau says, gesturing for them to have a look around. She’s not really all that ashamed of what’s in there, but it’s a catchy title that had kind of caught on inside her own head.

Hanging on the walls, there are all sorts of chains, and bars, and straps, many of which are pretty well used. Somewhere along the way, Beau had decided that it would be easier to have her own stuff, because it’s mostly going to be used on her anyway, and it saves readjusting every time someone wants to put something on.

‘Holy _shit_ , Beau,’ Jester says, in an awed sort of voice. ‘Even _I_ don’t have this much stuff, and I have sex for a _living_.’

‘Funnily enough,’ Beau says, with a sly sort of grin on her face, ‘You may have noticed that I kind of like sex...y’know, a lot.’ There’s a long pause. ‘Some of it’s...you know, a little much. But I can’t change the fact that it’s what...turns me on, I guess.’

There’s an awkward sort of pause. After everything they’ve been through, it’d really suck if they got creeped out by her kinks  _now_ .

There’s one particular thing that she wants to explore tonight; the thing that she’d sort of trying to work herself up towards since she’d come back to life, with varying degrees of success (that is, absolutely no success). Beau grabs the soft, well-used coil of rope that’s hanging on one of the hooks, and the gesture does not go unnoticed by Yasha, or by Jester.

‘You want us to tie you up?’ Jester asks, frowning. It wouldn’t be the first time Jester’s tied her up, so Beau’s not entirely sure why she’s hesitant.

‘Not quite,’ Beau says gesturing towards her neck. The tension in the room suddenly ratchets up a notch.

‘No,’ Yasha says, immediately, and for half a second, Beau hates her.

‘It’s fine,’ Beau insists. ‘There’s a...set-up we can use where it’ll be entirely in my control. Neither of you have to do anything except make sure I don’t die. Again.’

They’re still hesitant, and it’s starting to piss Beau off.

‘Look at it this way,’ she says, a little angrily. ‘You can help me do it now, or I can do it myself later with a belt and a chair, so, you know...’ She pauses. She regrets. There’s a horrified sort of look on Jester’s face, which tells Beau that Yasha hadn’t mentioned any details of their last encounter. Beau considers the fact that she’s, just maybe, acting like a little bit of a dickhead. ‘I’m sorry. That was a stupid thing to say.’

It’s better this way, she thinks. Instead of having someone’s hands wrapped around her throat,  _she_ has control over the situation. She can stop it any time she feels like it’s too much, and doesn’t have to worry about Jester and Yasha getting cold feet (at least any more than they already have).

‘I’ve never used a knot that...that does that before,’ Jester says, a little nervous. ‘What if I do it wrong, and you get hurt?’

There’s a pause. ‘I’ve used it before,’ Beau admits. She doesn’t mention that it had been with Ophelia, because she knows that, more than anything else, will make them want to stop. The knots she’s used with Dairon haven’t been nearly so dangerous. ‘I’ll let you know if there’s something wrong.’

Jester is still hesitant, but Beau knows she can win the tiefling over.

‘I have a safe word. I have a gesture. You have healing magic. The moment anything looks like it’s going to go wrong, I trust you to do the right thing, okay?’

Jester nods. She bites her lip. ‘Is it weird that the thought of seeing you all tied up  _really_ turns me on?’

‘Of course not, that’s the whole point.’ Beau grins. Jester takes the coil of rope, and, under Beau’s instructions, makes all the necessary knots and loops. Yasha is watching with an intense sort of curiousity. She’s waiting, Beau realizes. Waiting for something to go wrong, so she can react, and stop it from getting any worse.

Beau straightens her arms experimentally, and the rope tightens around her neck. She lifts her arms, and the rope loosens. She takes a deep breath, suddenly nervous.

‘Okay?’ she says, and Jester, blue lips frowning, nods.

Beau straightens her arms.

The rope coils, and tightens, and the air leaves her lungs.

Darkness presses in all around her. Beau is vaguely aware of Yasha standing behind her, ready to cut the rope if Beau gives the signal. A little sooner than she’d like, Beau loosens her arms, lifting them slightly. Air rushes back into her lungs as she gasps. ‘I’m good,’ she says, to Jester’s questioning look. ‘This is fine.’ It is fine, she tells herself. The room is brightly lit. She can see Jester, she can feel Yasha’s hand on her shoulder. The Gentleman is not here. She is not going to die.

‘Can you…?’ she says, looking at Jester. ‘While I...’ The words trail off into nothingness. Beau kind of doesn’t want to say them out loud. _Can you fuck me while I try and choke myself out_.

Jester doesn’t even bother going for the strap-on, and immediately shoves two fingers straight into Beau. Yasha’s hand twitches slightly on Beau’s shoulder, and Beau  thinks she wants to join in.

‘Do it,’ Beau urges her. Yasha hesitates slightly, but doesn’t move her hand. Beau’s a little disappointed, but not surprised. It’s also kind of heart-warming that Yasha wouldn’t dare risk Beau’s safety for the sake of sexual gratification.

Beau tightens her arms once more, and feels her airways start to close off, even as Jester pumps in and out. The pleasure courses through her body, even as the darkness begins to press in once more. Time slows down to an instant, as she comes, and there’s a beautiful, ethereal sort of ecstasy that feels like it lasts an eternity.

Then the air comes rushing back in. The rope is slack, and Beau’s hands are free. She realizes that Yasha had cut her loose. Her eyes are wide, and she looks worried.

‘Thanks,’ Beau says with a gasp, and she’s kind of talking to both of them. She brings her arms back around, and lifts the rope over her head with one hand, massages the neck with the other. ‘That was...beyond amazing.’

Yasha does not look even remotely convinced, and even Jester seems a little worried. ‘Is there…’ Yasha says, slowly. ‘Is there something else that you like that is less...dangerous?’ Her voice is trembling, and, too late, Beau realizes just how uncomfortable that Yasha had been with the whole situation.  She had heard the words of warning, but dismissed them as just...well, growing pains. Something that would pass. Now, she realizes that Yasha had wanted no part of this at all.

‘Oh, sure,’ Beau says, in an off-hand sort of voice. ‘Y’know, spanking, flogging, candle wax...that sort of stuff is good too.’

Jester frowns. ‘So like...pain?’ Beau raises an eyebrow. Both Jester and Yasha have seen the aftermath of one of her sessions with Avantika, but it occurs to her that they’ve never quite gone into the details of what it is that Beau  _actually_ likes.

‘I mean, yeah. That’s the general gist of it.’ She feels the discomfort in the air, and tries to elaborate. ‘Like...pretend that within the context of sex, anything that should hurt me, is actually giving me a fucking _lot_ of pleasure.’

‘Like this?’ Jester asks brightly, and without warning, goes in to pinch one of Beau’s nipples. Beau can’t help but keen into her touch, grinning.

‘Yeah, sure.’

Yasha takes a deep breath. ‘I, uh...I don’t know what I would be comfortable doing, but I know for certain that I am not comfortable with...’ She gestures towards the cut rope lying on the ground. ‘...this.’ She looks shaken to her core, and Beau could fucking kick herself. They’ve been through this once already, with Yasha expressing her doubts, and Beau ignoring them. It’s fucking selfish, and she needs to pull herself out of that stupid, self-loathing head space, because it’s only going to end up hurting the people that she cares about.

She had rationalized in her head that it would be different. That because it had been Beau in control, that maybe Yasha would somehow feel okay about the whole situation. She hadn’t even let herself think otherwise.

‘Sorry for being a dick,’ she mutters, under her breath, more to Yasha, than to Jester. Yasha, who has the patience of a saint, and has already had to endure this once before.

Yasha puts a gentle hand on her  cheek . ‘It’s alright that you want to work through what happened to you. I just think that there are...safer ways to do it.’

She’s right. Of course she’s right. Beau hasn’t really taken the time to consider just how difficult this whole situation has been for  _them_ , dealing with Beau being equal parts distant and withdrawn, with her being reckless in regards to her own safety, and, more importantly, completely and utterly inconsiderate of their feelings.

_Fuck_ .

Beau realizes now, that she’s going to have to make some concessions. There are some things that Yasha and Jester might be willing to do, and very clearly some that they are no willing to do, and it’s not Beau’s job to try and convince them otherwise.

‘We can try some other stuff,’ Beau acquiesces. ‘Maybe not tonight,’ she adds, hastily, knowing that right now, it’s probably more important that they have a low key sort of evening. She bundles up the rope that’s lying on the floor, and tosses it into the corner of the room. It’s semi-useless now it’s been cut (even if Jester can _Mend_ it, which, now Beau thinks about it, she probably can), but Beau’s pretty sure she doesn’t want to use this particular piece of paraphernalia for a while again anyway.

Instead, she sends a message down to the kitchen to bring up a platter of what she would probably refer to as Xhorhasian comfort food. Things like deep-fried rat, and roasted spider, that Beau’s not particularly fond of, but will tolerate for Yasha’s sake. It’s been a while since they’ve been to Xhorhas, after all.

‘So,’ Beau says, after they’d gorged themselves on meats. She and Yasha have a tankard of beer in front of them, but Jester, who doesn’t drink, had opted for milk. ‘What have you two been doing all day while I’ve been off brooding?’ She says it with a lilt in her voice, as though her behavior is funny, rather than shameful.

Jester and Yasha share a guilty sort of look.

‘We, uh...we had an idea,’ Yasha says, frowning. ‘And we...’

‘We contacted Dairon,’ Jester finishes. ‘Or... _I_ contacted Dairon. Yasha had nothing to do with it.’ Yasha looks mildly surprised at Jester trying to cover for her. Beau’s a little surprised to find that she doesn’t care. After everything that’s happened, after how intertwined their lives have become, it had been inevitable that they would have to contact Dairon anyway. This just brings their timetable forward.

‘Good,’ Beau says, nodding. They still look hesitant, but Beau decides that that’s problem for another day. They’ve had enough drama already, and it’s largely her fault. 

The last thing she wants to do is drive off the two people in the world that would do anything for her.


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter:  
> Beau/Jester  
> Beau/Yasha  
> Strap-on  
> Fingering

Chapter Seventeen

The next day, Beau sends out scouts.

There’s more than a few of her people who are stealthy and conspicuous enough to gather information about the situation closer to Zadash, disguised as merchants, or farmers, or down-on-their luck travelers. Hopefully, by the time they get back, they’ll be in a position to move.

There’s not much to be done about Nicodranas, save sending some more foot-soldiers to keep an eye on it. Jester messages Blude, who says that things seem well enough in hand. The  _Chateau_ is closed for now; without Jester there, there’s little reason for people to come.

‘I’m sorry,’ Beau tells her that afternoon, as she watches Jester paint. It’s a surprisingly calming experience, watching the picture grow and change with each stroke of the brush. ‘I didn’t mean for you to drop your life entirely.’

Jester shrugs. ‘I mean...that was  _Momma’s_ life. I did it to, you know, keep the Chateau, but...I can be happy doing other things, too.’

Beau gives a slight smirk. ‘Yeah?’ Jester flicks paint in her direction. She’s wearing the hat of disguise once more; today her skin is a silvery shade of blue that reminds Beau a little bit of pearls.

‘Like painting, and fucking, and helping you run a criminal empire.’ Jester swings around on her stool, and strikes with the paintbrush again. Beau could have dodged, but doesn’t, and ends up with a stripe of green paint across her chest.

‘Oh man,’ she says. ‘I’m gonna have to take this off now, it’s filthy. Beau unbuttons the shirt, and shrugs it off her shoulders, leaving her chest bare.

‘Well _now_ we have to do something,’ Jester says, with a put-upon sort of sigh. She sets down her paintbrush.

‘Let me take care of you,’ Beau murmurs, leaning forward to brush Jester’s cheek. So often lately it’s been them taking care of Beau, that it’s about time she returns the favor. Jester doesn’t argue. She lets Beau pull her to her feet, and drag her towards the bed. Together they get Jester’s dress, and bodice, and smallclothes off, leaving them in a haphazard pile on the floor. 

It’s not the first time Beau’s done this. It’s the sort of thing she’d done the first few times she’d slept with women, before she’d figured out the sort of stuff she really liked. Not that she doesn’t like this; the way Jester tells her exactly what to do, exactly what she needs. Even though she’s giving, Beau isn’t the one in charge of this situation.

‘Put your hands on my breasts,’ Jester orders, and Beau hastens to obey, spreading her palms out over the soft, pillowy blue flesh, and letting her thumbs flick at the already hardening nipples there. ‘Squeeze them.’ Beau does, and Jester gives a moan of pleasure.

‘Lie on the bed,’ Jester tells her, and Beau crawls up onto the bed. Without warning, Jester runs off to get something, as she so often does.

She’s a little surprised when Jester returns with the harness. After all, Beau had thought that the idea had been for her to pleasure Jester. Then Jester lifts Beau’s legs and starts putting the harness onto her, and she starts to get the idea.

‘Is that too tight?’ Jester asks, and she pulls on the straps a little, testing them.

‘No, it’s good,’ Beau tells her. Jester takes the phallus, and fits it into the harness. The base of it presses against Beau’s clit, and Jester moves it in a circle, a wild sort of grin on her face. ‘You fucking tease.’

Jester climbs on top of Beau, and slowly lowers herself down. Beau can’t help but watch as she stretches around the phallus, giving another tiny moan of pleasure. Beau reaches down, and rubs her thumb against Jester’s clit. Jester’s whole body tenses with pleasure.

This is Beau’s penance.

It’s a different sort of penance than she’s used to, penance by giving pleasure rather than receiving pain.

Jester moans as she ruts into Beau’s hand, seemingly more interested in it than in the strap-on that’s pumping in and out of her. Beau slides a finger alongside the wooden phallus, and continues to rub her thumb.

There’s a knock at the door. ‘It’s uh, me...’ comes Yasha’s voice.

‘Come in,’ Beau and Jester say, simultaneously. The door opens, and Yasha is a little startled to see what they’re in the middle of. Considering the fact that, not ten minutes ago, they’d been fully clothed in front of the easel, it’s not surprising.

‘Kord’s grace, I cannot leave you alone for even half an hour,’ Yasha murmurs, clearly enjoying the show. She sits down on the bed next to Beau, and simple watches as Jester bounces up and down, faster and faster, before coming with a barely muted scream. ‘That was very arousing,’ Yasha says, in a deadpan sort of voice.

‘You want a turn?’ Beau asks, grinning. Yasha stares at her, and blinks after about twenty seconds. ‘I mean, you don’t have to if you don’t want to.’

‘I can help,’ Jester adds, once she’s regained her composure.

‘I...I have never done this before,’ Yasha admits. ‘I don’t know if...I would enjoy it.’ She pauses, and, apparently eager to make a clarification after their previous encounters, adds, ‘But I am willing to try.’

With Jester’s help, Yasha strips naked. Beau leans into the pillows, fingers interlocked behind her head, and definitely enjoying the scene in front of her. Long before they’d first had sex, Beau had always enjoyed seeing Yasha naked.

The barbarian climbs onto the bed, and, without help from anyone, lowers herself onto the phallus that’s still wet with Jester’s juices. With Yasha’s weight behind it, it presses down hard into Beau’s clit. There’s a pause.

‘What do I do?’

‘You like...lift up, and then drop back down,’ Jester tells her. Yasha follows her instructions to the letter, only she lifts up a little too far, and consequently drops back down on top of Beau with a heavy thump.

‘Oof,’ Beau says, and she’s half laughing. Jester is under no pretext of formality, and is laughing her ass off.

‘I’m so sorry,’ Yasha says, looking suddenly horrified. ‘Are you okay?’

‘Yeah,’ Beau says, a little weakly. She’s winded, but not injured, which is lucky, because she’s pretty sure that Yasha’s solid enough to have broken some bones if she’d landed the wrong way. She pats Yasha’s thigh. ‘Hop back up.’

Yasha slides on once more, and this time when she lifts up, it’s a little more cautious, a little more measured.

Beau takes Yasha by the hips, keeping her centered. Then, she moves one hand to Yasha’s clit, and does the same thing she’d done for Jester. Yasha’s moans are quieter, but her whole body seems to react more, quivering with each pinch of Beau’s fingers.

The fingers of Beau’s other hand dig tighter into Yasha’s hips. They’ll probably leave bruises. Beau’s seen Yasha bruised and bleeding and broken before, though it’s usually after a hard fight rather than a hard fuck.

It’s a few more minutes before Yasha falls apart under Beau’s touch, and, with a heave, pulls herself off to collapse onto the bed. ‘That was...different,’ she says, finally.

‘Is that the first time you’ve...been the fuckee?’ Beau says. It’s not the most eloquent way to say it, but she’s pretty sure the message gets across.

‘The first time that I have been penetrated by such an object, yes,’ Yasha says.

‘You did _such_ a good job,’ Jester says proudly. ‘Did you come, Beau?’

‘Nah, I’m good,’ Beau tells her. She’s wet, for sure, but she’s not on edge. She’s happy enough knowing that Jester and Yasha had enjoyed the experience.

‘Are you sure?’ Yasha looks a little worried. It’s a fair point; Beau isn’t often one to turn down sex. But she’s maybe sort of trying to divorce her sexual feelings from her other sorts of romantic feelings, and right now, the most important thing is just kind of _being_ with Yasha and Jester.

Beau slips the harness off, and tosses it onto the nightstand. They’ll have to tidy it up before the cleaning staff comes around tomorrow morning, but Beau’s fairly certain all of the housekeepers have seen much filthier things than used dildos lying around the place. Maybe she should pay them more.

After they’re all dressed again, Jester goes back to painting. Beau’s getting a little peckish, so she wanders downstairs to the kitchen, and has them make her a late lunch. She’s a little surprised to see Yasha joining her, an almost serene look on the barbarian’s face.

They’re halfway through their respective plates of bacon and...more bacon, when Beau voices a question that’s been plaguing the back of her mind for a while now.

‘Hey Yash. You worship Kord, right?’

Yasha is a little stunned by the question, and Beau doesn’t blame her. It’s not the sort of thing that they generally talk about, but Beau figures that since things are a little more...intimate now, then maybe she should learn about more than just the things that Yasha likes in bed.

‘Yes,’ Yasha tells her. ‘I...Kord saved me, during a very harrowing time in my life. I do not remember all of it, and...’ A pause. ‘I do not know if I am ready to discuss it fully. But he saved me, and gave me the powers to fight in his name.’

‘Bringing the storm,’ Beau says, and Yasha nods.

‘I do not know yet what purpose he has for me, but he has not complained yet, so I continue to do what I do.’

‘You think he’d be upset about all the people we keep killing?’

Yasha considers the matter for a moment. ‘They are not good people,’ she says, finally. ‘I am not convinced that _we_ are good people, either. I do not know why, then, Kord has granted me this favor.’

Beau can’t deny the truth of that. That they’re not good people. Good people, she’s sure, don’t smuggle booze and drugs across the country. Good people don’t kill in cold blood. She clenches her fist slightly. Being in this house always brings back those strange sort of memories.

‘You follow Ioun, yes?’ Yasha asks, as though she doesn’t already know. It had come up in conversation when they had stopped at a shrine to the Knowing Mistress, on the way to Alfield one spring afternoon. Beau had spent a little more time than usual leaving an offering.

She had not even considered the idea of following a God until after leaving the monastery. As the leader of a smuggling enterprise, so much of her business comes from intelligence and information and knowledge. Though it’s more than likely the last thing she wants, the Knowing Mistress is an ideal patrol of thieves and criminals.

‘Sure,’ Beau says. It’s probably not in any way similar to the relationship most people have with their Gods. She’s not sure (and honestly doesn’t particularly care) what Ioun might have to say about her plans to go out and commit more murder (though in the scheme of things Ioun is probably less judgmental than Kord). She supposes it must count for something that the guy she wants to kill is pretty fucking evil. ‘I just...we’ve been doing this a while, earning money, expanding, and stuff. We kill the Gentleman, and...then what? Just keep on going? Take the whole continent?’

‘Better the devils you know,’ Yasha says, and Beau kind of gets what she’s talking about. They don’t go anywhere near the dark stuff. Don’t touch slavery, or killers for hire, or anything like that. If they’re the ones in power, then at least maybe that stuff won’t be as rampant. It’s a bit of a fool’s game, Beau knows; bad shit happens no matter the hierarchy.

‘I’m sorry again,’ Beau says, aware that it’s an abrupt change in subject. She’s got so many ideas running through her head about all the shit that’s going on, that sometimes she forgets that other people aren’t necessarily privy to her thought process. ‘For...not respecting your boundaries.’

Yasha is a little surprised. Beau wonders if Yasha had even considered it a violation of her boundaries. ‘I just was worried about you,’ Yasha says. ‘I...love you, and I do not want to see you die again.’

Beau’s brain freezes a little. She’s already pretty sure she’d know that Yasha loves her, but to know it and to actually hear it are two completely different things.

She takes Yasha’s hand, and squeezes it. ‘I love you too.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jester will obviously get an "ILU" conversation as well, but I felt like it was important for Beau and Yasha to address Yasha's concerns in a non-sexual environment. They still have a bit more to discuss, but they're a little more on the same page now.


	18. Chapter Eighteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter:  
> Beau/Jester  
> Beau/Yasha/Jester  
> Beau/Yasha/Jester/Dairon  
> Foursome  
> Double Penetration  
> Anal sex  
> Vaginal sex  
> Strap-on use  
> Cunnilingus  
> Face sitting  
> Minor use of restraints

Chapter Eighteen

In the days leading up to Dairon’s inevitable arrival, Beau prepares.

There’s only so many times that you can sharpen a sword, so once that’s done, she practices her forms, which will no doubt be of little use once she actually gets into a fight. If nothing else, it keeps her mind focused in a way that nothing else but sex can generally achieve. 

Not that she’s not having sex. In fact, that too starts ramping up, to the point where it almost feels like the only things she’s been doing are fighting, and fucking. It’s honestly not that bad a life, and Beau’s almost disappointed when there’s a firm knock on the front door at eleven o’clock at night the following Miresen.

Beau had warned the guards of their impending arrival, but even still, Dairon is accompanied by two heavily armored swordsmen, and looks none too pleased about it.

‘I would have thought that after all this time, you trusted me, Beauregard.’

Dairon looks a little tired, as people always do after completing the trek. Coming in this direction at least, it’s mostly downhill, and all the hard stuff is at the beginning of the journey.

‘I do trust you.’

‘The last time I left the monastery, it was to commit murder,’ the elf says, and though not outright stated, the implication of the words is clear. _You owe me your trust_.

Beau looks at the guards. ‘This person is to be given free passage in and out of the Estate, and of Kamordah,’ she says, and then stares at Dairon pointedly. ‘Better?’

‘It’ll do,’ Dairon says, coolly, though she still looks wary. As Beau leads her inside, she looks the house up and down, from the polished silver vases, to the expensive art that lines the walls. ‘This is your abode?’ Dairon asks, and if Beau’s not mistaken, there’s a thinly veiled layer of what might be disgust in their voice.

There’s an awkward sort of silence. Beau had forgotten that in spite of the monastery’s closeness, Dairon had never been to Kamordah. Or, more accurately, had never been to Kamordah during Beau’s tenure as its quasi-protector.

‘It was my parents’ house,’ Beau says, inviting a response. It’s not as though she’s eager to live here. In fact, those weeks that she’s spent in Nicodranas have been much more pleasurable. This place is filled with all sorts of ghosts, many of which Beau herself is responsible for.

‘Your parents, who you murdered,’ Dairon says. There’s a moment of awkward silence.

‘It was self-defense,’ Beau mutters, and Dairon knows it. She’s just trying to push Beau’s buttons. Provoke a response. ‘Let me show you to your bedroom,’ Beau says evenly. ‘I’m gonna go back to bed. You can join if you want, but fair warning there are two other people already there.’

There’s a long pause. ‘No thanks,’ Dairon says; the look in her eye says she knows exactly what Beau’s doing.

Beau shrugs. ‘Open invitation,’ she says. ‘If you ever feel like telling three really horny people what to do.’

There’s half a moment where Beau thinks that Dairon might take her up on it, but then they don’t. Beau shrugs. It makes no difference to her either way. So she leads Dairon to one of the spare rooms, and returns to the bedroom where Yasha and Jester are waiting for her.

‘Fair warning,’ Beau says, even as she slips off her shirt. ‘I may have invited Dairon to join us.’ The reactions are about what Beau had expected. Jester looks curious, and Yasha looks startled, but that may be because Jester has just pulled her fingers out very suddenly.

‘Oh, cool,’ Jester says. Beau remembers, suddenly that Jester has slept with a _lot_ of people. ‘I bet she’s like...super intense in bed.’

‘I can’t say I’m...against it, necessarily,’ Yasha says, slowly. ‘But I, ah…it is difficult enough co-ordinating three people in the bedroom, let alone adding a fourth.’

‘If I know anything about Dairon,’ Beau says, ‘Then they’re gonna take on all the “co-ordination” themself.’

Yasha hesitates. ‘If it is what you want,’ she says, and Beau interjects immediately.

‘This isn’t about what I want; you do something because _you_ want to do it, not just because _I_ want to do it.’

‘Or, you know, it could be both,’ Jester adds, brightly. ‘Or, you could like...watch. I know there are lots of people that like to do that.’

It’s a moot point anyway, given that Dairon might not even show up, but Yasha at least feels comfortable with the idea of watching, for which Beau is grateful. It would be weird to do it with Jester around, but not Yasha.

To Beau’s surprise, close to midnight, there’s a knock on the door. They’ve just finished round two, and Beau is pleasantly sore in all the right places.

Beau opens the door, to a disdainful looking Dairon. ‘I can hear your screams,’ she says, pointedly. ‘Was that an attempt to annoy me?’

It hadn’t been – the _Pass Without a Trace_ that Jester had cast must have run out – but Beau lets her believe it anyway, opening the door a little bit further to show that she is absolutely not wearing any clothes.

‘Insolent,’ Dairon mutters, and pushes Beau back into the room, shutting the door behind her.

‘Hi Dairon!’ Jester says, brightly. Dairon does a slight double-take at the bright orange tiefling that’s sitting naked on the bed. They’d been messing around with the Hat of Disguise. Jester seems to notice the slightly horrified expression, and shifts back to a much more palatable pale blue. Beau’s not sure she even needs the color swap anymore, but she’s certainly more comfortable with it.

‘Hello,’ Dairon says, and it’s the voice of someone that is starting to regret all of their life choices. ‘If we are going to do this, then you will all listen to me, and obey everything that I say.’

There’s a moment of silence that’s only a little bit awkward.

‘Yasha’s just going to watch to start with,’ Beau says. Yasha looks as nervous as Beau has ever seen her, and it’s weird. She supposes that it’s different for her, because she’s known Dairon for so long, and this will probably be in excess of her fiftieth time with the elf. She knows what to expect.

Jester...well, sometimes Beau thinks that Jester’s just happy to be here.

‘Okay!’ Jester says, brightly. Dairon gives her a bemused sort of look, and it’s kind of funny. Jester is...a lot, if you aren’t used to her.

‘You,’ Dairon says to Yasha, ‘Sit down.’ Yasha stares at her – Beau is absolutely sure that Dairon actually does know Yasha’s name, but is choosing not to use it – but sits in the armchair without argument.

‘You two, clothes off.’ There’s something in Dairon’s voice that makes Beau want to obey everything she says, even though not obeying straight away is half the fun. Once upon a time, with shadier people, that’s how she’d earned the majority of her punishments.

‘What is your safe-word?’ Dairon asks Jester, who’s (Beau stifles a laugh) putting her dress on a hanger. Beau folds her shirt, and her pants, because apparently they’re being neat about their stripping tonight.

‘Oh! Um...’ Usually, they all just use Cinnamon, but it makes sense to have different words for different situations. ‘Bear claw,’Jester says, finally. Dairon doesn’t ask Beau, who’s used “Cobalt” since the very first day they’d fucked.

‘Are you joining?’ Beau asks, with an eyebrow raised. Dairon has made no move to remove any clothing, and as much fun as it is to have her barking orders at them, it’d be more fun if they actually joined in.

‘Clothes off,’ Dairon repeats. ‘Perhaps if you take any longer, I will have no choice but to intervene.’ Beau smirks. It’d almost be worth it to tarry just to get that going, and, had she been alone with Dairon, she might have, but Jester’s already naked, and Beau really wants to get her hands on those gorgeous, pale blue breasts. Beau gives a heavy sort of sigh, and removes her breast-band. Jester licks her lips appreciatively. Beau tips her a wink. There’s something to be said about those canines against her nipples. More than once, Jester has drawn blood (and not just on the nipples).

Dairon directs them to the bed, and allows a bit of free-form feeling up for a few minutes, letting everyone get nice and horny in the meantime.

‘Stop,’ Dairon says, after a little bit, and Beau stops. Jester, who clearly doesn’t have any knowledge of what Dairon’s like when they’re pissed, doesn’t. ‘Stop.’ This time, the voice is a little louder, the tone a little harsher. In the chair, Yasha makes a noise, but otherwise, doesn’t say anything. Nonetheless, Jester stops.

Dairon looks at Beau. ‘On your knees,’ she says, and then, looking to Yasha, adds, ‘Fetch some rope.’ Yasha looks a little startled, but obeys without question. There’s no shortage of rope lying around, and Beau wonders if maybe Yasha’s still thinking about the last time that they’d used rope. ‘Bind her wrists.’

‘Beau—’

‘Do it,’ Beau says. She has an idea of where Dairon’s going with this one. Yasha binds the wrists, but it’s a gentle knot, and Beau is almost certain of the fact that she could break out of it without too much effort. Still, Beau kind of gets what Dairon’s going for; it’s the same thing she’d done at the monastery, a gentle restraint that still fulfills her needs, but doesn’t send her into a panic attack.

Under Dairon’s direction, Jester moves to the edge of the bed. Normally, Beau would take her by the thighs as she leans in, but her hands are quite literally tied, so Jester has all the control. She grabs the back of Beau’s head, and pulls her in. Beau doesn’t have a chance to breath in, to take stock, she’s almost shoved directly into Jester’s wet heat. She spells her name, for fun – her full name, which always gets them writhing – before getting started on the clit. She licks it, and sucks it interchangeably for a few minutes, before giving Jester the edge of a tooth. Jester gives a loud, high-pitched sort of scream, and pulls Beau’s head in tighter. It’s getting a little hard to breath, but Beau’s sure as fuck not going to let herself pass out covered in someone else’s juices. She’d never hear the end of it. Instead, she goes all in with the teeth, and Jester’s whole body starts writhing. She comes with another tiny scream, and finally lets go, and Beau takes in a deep breath.

‘Good,’ Dairon says. They seem satisfied with the outcome, and also not nearly done. Beau doesn’t disagree. Finishing up a foursome after one round of cunnilingus would be pretty disappointing. Apparently Yasha thinks so, too, because she makes an impatient sort of noise that draws Dairon’s gaze. ‘Would you like to join in?’ she asks, and Yasha pauses.

‘Yes,’ she says. Dairon nods.

‘Fetch some harnesses,’ she says. ‘And a selection of sizes.’ Beau’s kind of amused by the fact that Dairon doesn’t even ask if Beau _has_ harnesses. They apparently know their student well enough to assume that its a give, which it absolutely is. In any case, Yasha returns with two harnesses (the ones that she and Jester favor using), and half a dozen attachments. Beau bites back a laugh, and watches as Dairon selects dildos like she’s selecting cheese for a platter.

The two she selects are reasonably modest, but Beau knows better than to think that that’ll mean she’s going to get an easy ride. Especially since Yasha had also brought along the jar of lubricant. There’s a few minutes of stripping, and tightening and adjusting, during which Beau has frustratingly little to do except enjoy the show. She does, however, shake her hands free from their bindings, and isn’t reprimanded for doing so.

‘Are you ready?’ Yasha asks, a minute or so later. She’s sitting on the bed, and is lubed up and ready to go. They’d decided to forgo fingers, because the dildo is small enough, and Beau’s been stretched enough lately that it should slide in reasonably well. Even still, it takes a bit of coaxing from both Beau and Yasha, as Beau effectively sits on Yasha’s lap. There’s a nice, slow burn through her ass.

‘Hi,’ she grins, looking back at Yasha, who has that ever-present line of worry across her face. Beau kisses her. Yasha smiles, nervously, and reaches her hands around to cup Beau’s breasts. Beau moves her hips a little bit, and godsdamn, it feels good.

‘Beauregard,’ Dairon says, sharply, and Beau starts. She’d kind of forgotten that Dairon had been there for half a second. She hasn’t forgotten about Jester, who’s still playing with the straps, and looks mildly disappointed that they’re getting started so quickly.

‘You guys,’ she says. ‘Don’t have all the fun without me.’ She steps forward, and without any preamble, thrusts in. Beau gasps, and Yasha catches it with her mouth. For all the dozens of times they’ve had sex by this point, this is the first time they’ve actually done this, and Beau has to admit, it feels pretty good. Not even the penetration (though the penetration is fucking fantastic), but the fact that she’s got Yasha behind her, and Jester in front of her, and they’re kind of...holding her in.

They pull, and they push, emptying her, and filling her up again, and, under Dairon’s direction, the speed seems to be getting faster, and faster, until Beau comes with a swallowed scream. She’s quite content to sit there in their embrace, but Dairon is impatient once more, and is clearly looking for her own release.

‘Do you want me to fuck you?’ Jester asks, nonchalantly. Beau snorts, realizing that Dairon doesn’t know the full story of Jester’s background, though she’s probably managed to put most of it together.

Beau’s very much expecting Dairon to say no, so she’s kind of surprised, when it’s a considered, ‘Yes.’

Jester too, seems surprised, though Beau knows her better than to think she’d only offered out of politeness. If Jester offers to fuck you, then she absolutely intends on following through.

‘Lie back,’ Dairon orders, because apparently if she’s going to get fucked, then she’s going to be on top. Clearly, she’s wet enough (and the dildo itself already slick enough) that she slides on with barely any friction. Beau and Yasha kind of just watch for a few moments, before Beau climbs up there to join in. Dairon doesn’t tell her not to, but that’s possibly because Dairon’s a little busy pumping her hips up and down. Beau moves behind her, and cups her breasts in the same sort of way that Yasha had done hers.

Yasha is still a little hesitant, but not so much that she doesn’t crawl up there with Beau, and kiss Jester.

‘Face!’ Jester gasps, and Yasha doesn’t need to be told twice. She rips off the harness with unnatural speed, and maneuvers her hips over Jester’s face. Damn, Beau kind of wishes she’d thought of that one first.

They’re all on edge enough that it’s quick, and after she dresses, Dairon doesn’t stick around. Beau hadn’t expected her to. Not that she isn’t a cuddler. They’d “cuddled,” for lack of a better term more than a few times back at the monastery, but they’re also a very private person, and there’s a stark difference between cuddling someone that you’re close to, and cuddling someone you’re close to plus two other people you’ve just fucked for the first time.

‘We will plan in the morning,’ is all Dairon says, on her way out the door.

Beau shrugs. She finds a clean shirt and some underclothes in the dresser. ‘That, ah...wasn’t too weird for you guys, was it?’ she asks. Her body is aching in all the best ways, and there’s a lazy grin on her face that hasn’t quite faded.

‘No, it was fine,’ Jester shrugs. ‘I mean, pretty tame, but I guess we’ve got a lot to do tomorrow.’

Those words, of all things, are what causes the grin to fade. Beau had almost forgotten the super important reason that Dairon is actually here, and the super dangerous mission that they have to plan.

But, that’s tomorrow.


	19. Chapter Nineteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter:  
> Mentions of fingering.  
> That's pretty much it.

19 - Chapter Nineteen

The next morning, a sort of stillness falls over Kamordah. The calm before the storm.

The house feels strangely empty. Far emptier than it has in recent weeks. There are a lot of people holding things down in Nicodranas. After they’re done, maybe they’ll be able to lessen the security just a little bit.

Of course, that’s assuming that they survive their assault on Zadash. That’s assuming they’re successful in their mission to kill the Gentleman, and...what they’re going to do _after_ that, Beau’s not sure. Admittedly, she’d thought she’d dealt with him effectively the first time, but clearly ruining him hadn’t been enough. She’d left him alive enough to come back and kill her.

This time, she’s not going to make the same mistake.

Beau’s sitting on the front stoop of the manor, sharpening her sword, when she hears the footsteps behind her. She recognizes Dairon’s gait without turning, which means that Dairon wants to be heard. If she hadn’t, then Beau knows she wouldn’t have heard a thing.

‘Hey.’ Beau grins. ‘How’re you feeling?’

‘It has, ah...been a while since I have done something like that,’ Dairon admits, stretching, as she sits down next to Beau. It’s an oddly casual act for the elf, the sort that Beau had never seen in the monastery. Getting away from there once in a while would be no bad thing for Dairon.

‘What, like a hundred years?’

‘Perhaps a little less time than that.’ Dairon takes a breath. Beau gets the distinct impression they want to discuss something important. ‘Before we...plan, I need to tell you something. An aspect of the plan that has already been agreed upon.’

Beau doesn’t like the sound of that one bit. Not least of all because it almost definitely sounds like Dairon has been discussing this with Yasha and Jester behind her back. When she doesn’t say anything, Dairon continues.

‘We have agreed that it would not do to have you go in alone. However, I can...I _will_...alter myself to assume your appearance. For all intents and purposes, it will appear as though you are attempting an individual assault of his headquarters.’

‘No fucking way,’ Beau says, angrily. ‘Absolutely not. You won’t let me do it, so why the fuck should I let you?’

‘Because I am older, and wiser, and, more importantly, have the support of your compatriots.’ Beau fucking knew it. She has half a mind to go instead and yell at Yasha and Jester for their part in this. She should feel hurt, she should feel angry, but in the end, the only thing she really feels is _scared_.

‘They’ll kill you,’ Beau says, desperately, and for all the things that have happened between them, all the ill-tempered words, and the years of absence, Beau knows that it will break her heart if Dairon dies.

Jester and Yasha are her heart, her soul, but Dairon is her mind, her spirit. She loves Dairon just as much as she does the other two, if in a different sort of way. Maybe it’s because of all the people she’s ever had in her life, Dairon had been the first one to truly care for her.

‘If I die in the service of protecting you, then it will be worthwhile.’ Dairon takes Beau’s hand, and squeezes it. Beau squeezes back

‘Let’s get one thing straight,’ she says, firmly. ‘Even if I...let you do this...’ She says the words knowing she isn’t really “letting” Dairon do anything. Dairon does whatever Dairon wants to do. ‘I am _not_ going to let you die.’

‘Let us hope it is that easy.’

…

Beau has to admit that Dairon going in under a spell does make things easier. She absolutely knows that the Gentlemen will expect her to go in without any backup. What better plan than to give him exactly what he expects?

Of course, it doesn’t feel like the best idea when Beau’s standing across from a mirror image of herself.

Beau pokes herself – pokes Dairon – on the cheek. Dairon gives a withering sort of stare that Beau’s sure she’s given other people before. Somehow it’s scarier knowing that it’s coming from Dairon.

‘Is it just me, or is that _super_ hot,’ Jester says, staring. Both Beau and Dairon turn to glare at her.

‘I’m just saying...’ Jester mutters, shrugging. She has a wistful sort of look on her face. Dairon shifts back to her own form, but she’s still wearing the tight breeches, and shirt and waistcoat that has become Beau’s daily wardrobe over the past couple of years.

‘I don’t know how you manage to fight in this.’ Dairon tries to turn, to stretch, to kick, but is clearly finding it difficult. Beau can’t help but notice how good they look wearing her clothes.

‘Practice,’ Beau shrugs. ‘Plus, you know, trying to talk my way out of actually having to fight.’

‘And how did that work out for you?’

‘Well, last night I talked my way into a foursome with three very attractive people, so I’d say I’m doing okay.’ She’ll be doing much better once this is all over, admittedly, which might be as soon as tomorrow. From Kamordah to Zadash, it’s about eight hours by horse, and a little longer by foot. Dairon will go there directly, whereas she, Jester and Yasha will take a stealthier route. They’ll stagger their departure times so that everything will be ready to go at once.

The only risk – or rather, the biggest risk, because Beau’s not so arrogant to think that their plan is without flaws – is that Dairon won’t be able to contact them once she’s in. They’d discussed the option of using Sending Stones, but that will ruin the illusion that the Fake Beau is there on some reckless assassination mission. Instead, they’ll have to rely on Jester, and Dairon’s ability to work alone.

All things considered, there are worse things to rely on.

…

They set off a little after noon, cart laden with goods that could conceivably help their disguise as merchants traveling north from Alfield. It means that they’ll have to go south to Deastock, East to Alfield, and then back North to Zadash. A bit of a roundabout route, but if the deception gets them an extra ten minutes, then it’ll be worth it.

For all that the Gentleman and Beau are closely acquainted, for lack of a better term, she’s also the least recognizable of their little trio, so she’s the one that gets to drive the cart, albeit heavily disguised. Yasha is wearing the _Hat of Disguise_ , and Jester is hiding in the back, ready to cast _Disguise Self_ if she needs to. It won’t be foolproof, and honestly, Beau expects the Gentleman to be smarter than that, but at the very least it might get them into the city unnoticed.

Really, though, even though they’ve been doing recon, Beau doesn’t have a strong idea of just what his numbers are. She’d close to wiped out a lot of his forces the first time round, which means he may not have built them back up entirely. Of course, he just as easily could have spent the last six months recruiting people while she’s been fucked off in Nicodranas getting laid. It’s a harrowing thought that she tries not to let overtake her mind as they travel south. The fake beard that Jester had glued on itches, and Beau really wishes they’d waited at least until Alfield to do that, but who knows what kind of eyes are out there.

‘It seems like it would have been easier,’ Beau says, as they stop to let the horses drink, ‘For you to be the man. At least you don’t have to feel the beard.’ Yasha is disguised as a reasonably attractive middle-aged woman, long dark hair in an updo.

‘Yes, but then people would be able to see your face, which is exactly what we don’t want.’ Beau concedes that point. If anyone recognizes her, then it’s all over. Their infiltration will be pointless if the Gentleman knows that the distraction is just that.

They spend the night on the road just shy of Alfield. Beau’s more worked up than she has been in months, and it takes a rough, under the pants fingering from Jester to ease some of the tension. Yasha, for her part, seems distracted, and uninterested in sex, and probably will be until after their mission is complete.

In the morning, they message Dairon.

Alfield to Zadash isn’t all that far, but they take it slow, because they don’t want to get there too far ahead of Dairon. Even still, it’s mid-afternoon when they breach the city gates. They avoid the Tri-Spire, knowing that it will break any illusion that they’ve put together. Instead, they book rooms at the Leaky Tap, far enough away from the Evening Nip that they might go unnoticed for a few hours.

Beau rests.

She’s not all that tired – in fact, she’s more wired than anything – but she knows that it’s going to be the last rest she might get in a while. In fact, it might be the last rest she ever gets, if she dies again tonight. There’s a pretty high chance that will happen, and for some reason, it’s an almost calming thought. After all, she’s already died once. She knows what to expect. Knows the sort of stuff that’s waiting for her on the other side. Like, if the worst thing that happens is that Beau dies, then she’s almost okay with that. She’s more concerned about Yasha, and Jester, and Dairon, and already has made a decision that if it comes down to it, she’s willing to put her own life on the line.

Yasha, still wearing the hat, orders food and drinks. Beau manages to force herself to have a few mouthfuls of bacon without it coming back up. It’s weird. She hadn’t felt even close to this nervous the first time they’d taken this douchebag out, even though it had arguably been a far more dangerous mission. Maybe it’s the fact that their last encounter with the Gentleman had gone so poorly.

The idea is that they’ll go in after dark, so Jester _Sends_ another message to Dairon after the suns sets. Beau’s pacing the room, biting her nails, running a hand through her hair trying to pretend like she’s not freaking out with fear right now.

Once they actually get started, she knows she’ll be fine, but she’s always found the calm before the storm to be the worst part. When things actually start going to shit, that’s when she shines.

Jester looks a little nauseous. Beau frowns. ‘No response?’ she asks. She can’t quite help the wave of worry rise up in her.

‘No, she responded. She’s ready.’ Jester swallows. Too late, Beau remembers that this is the first time that Jester’s done anything like this. Has never even really been in a fight, let alone gone on a mission of assassination.

Shit, maybe Beau’s a bad influence. Just six months ago, Jester had been an innocent courtesan, and now she’s getting ready to help kill someone. Ah, well, there are worse things in the world.

Yasha stands, slings her great-ax over her shoulder. Jester clenches her fist. Beau sheathes her sword.

She takes a breath.

This is it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two chapters left after this.


	20. Chapter Twenty

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter:
> 
> A decent amount of canon-typical violence  
> mentions of blood  
> implications of breath-play

20

They move under cover of darkness, still, for the most part, disguised by magical means. As they draw ever closer to the  _Evening Nip_ , Beau keeps an ear out for any disturbance, and Jester sends another message to Dairon.

‘I didn’t get a reply,’ she hisses, after a few minutes of nervous silence. Beau’s not sure whether that’s good news or bad news, but either way, that’s their signal to go. Either Dairon’s in a position where she can’t respond, or she’s physically unable to respond, neither of which are situations that Beau is comfortable prolonging. ‘They’re in the same room,’ she says. ‘On the second floor.’ Beau doesn’t ask how Jester knows; she assumes there was some spell involved, but she doesn’t really care which. They have their plan.

Jester  _Dimension Doors_ up, using a cloak that she has.

Yasha kicks in the door.

Beau climbs up in through the window.

Right into the face of the Goliath that’s waiting for her.

The good news is, the Goliath – Sarah? No, Sorah – is already pretty heavily injured. From experience alone, Beau recognizes that wounds left by Dairon’s sword, but she can’t quite see past the Goliath to figure out the actual outcome of that battle.

Beau remembers  Sorah . She’d sort of thought they’d killed her the first time around, and it unnerves her slightly that they apparently hadn’t. Either that, or the Gentleman had gone to the trouble and expense to  _Raise_ her from the dead. The best way to make sure that doesn’t happen this time is to kill everyone indiscriminately. Leaving someone alive is how they’d gotten into this mess. Beau is never going to make that mistake again. Next time – this time, rather – no-one gets left alive.

At least, that’s the thought that’s running through her head as she slices Sorah from neck to thigh.  Doesn’t even break her stride. Beau could have said “no hard feelings,” but she has some pretty fucking hard feelings about being strangled to death in Shady Creek Run. So much so that maybe she’s willing to mindlessly slaughter anyone that has even the slightest thing to do with the Gentleman.

‘I think that may make us tit for tat,’ The Gentleman says. He’s standing at the door, and Beau tries not to stare at the limp body that’s lying underneath him.

_Where the fuck is Jester?_

She should have made it up here before Beau, but then, she’d also planned to Dimension Door into the hallway, so she could come in from behind (and then she’d sniggered about that part of the plan for almost five minutes). There must be more guards in the hallway. A fresh wave of fear washes over Beau.

She readies her sword, very, very aware that this is the first time she’s going up against the Gentleman one on one. The first time, he hadn’t been around when she’d taken out his forces. The second time….well, at least this time, she was fully clothed. Her getup is a sort of bizarre mishmash of history and experience. She’s carrying the wakizashi instead of the rapier, but she’s still wearing the waistcoat and breeches and boots of what she’d call her “crimelord chic.”

‘I hope you’re a better swordsman than your teacher,’ the Gentleman says, indicating the body that Beau has so far avoided looking at. Beau steels herself. She takes a moment to look at Dairon. The enchantment has dropped, which means she’s unconscious, but Beau can still see the rise and fall of her chest, if a little slow. If Beau doesn’t finish this quickly, though, then that will change.

It worries her, that the Gentleman was able to beat Dairon in single combat. It’s not like Beau’s ever been able to; at least not properly.  Then, she remembers the Goliath, and feels maybe a little bit better.  There’s also the fact that his sword is way bigger, and there’s something inherently phallic about that that Beau honestly doesn’t want to think about. As it is, she already has to brush away the memories of his hands around her throat. He had, unfortunately, not been so kind as to wear a  _Hat of Disguise_ .  With t he hand that’s not holding a sword,  she clenches her fist.

If there’s one thing that Beau misses about using a rapier, it’s the reach. She strafes around to the side, just outside the distance of the point of the rapier. She has a dagger in her belt, which will trap the blade a little better than the wakizashi will, but she’s not all that experienced in using it. If she can get close enough, then he won’t be able to defend, but the problem is getting around the sword. While she’s still thinking, he goes for a riposte, and she just barely dodges it in time. She’s reminded, darkly, of her own riposte against Dairon, at the monastery, what feels like months ago, but is probably only a few weeks.

He’s not surprised, or upset that she dodges it. It’s only the first stages of their duel, after all. Beau feints left, ducks right, and slices towards his upper chest. She gets in there, but can’t quite get out before he retaliates with another thrust, and when she steps back, they’re both bleeding.

The Gentleman doesn’t seem concerned by this, and Beau tries not to be either. She’s so pumped with adrenaline that she doesn’t feel it, but she can sort of see the blood out of the corner of her eye.

‘Do you know how I knew it wasn’t you?’ he asks, mockingly. Beau doesn’t answer. She knows he’s trying to distract her, and she’s not going to let it happen. ‘She didn’t even bother gloating. Not nearly enough hubris. It’s so like you to prefer to send in someone else, instead of risking your own life.’

Beau spits at him, and she vaguely notices that her saliva is pink with blood. ‘Says the guy that only managed to kill me because I was tied up and helpless. If you’re gonna talk about cowardice, shithead, have a look in your own house.’ That strikes a bit of a nerve, and Beau’s honestly surprised that it does. Perhaps because it reminds him of Ophelia, who, Beau remembers, was brutally killed by Dairon. Beau doesn’t think that the Gentleman knows that, though, otherwise he would have gone to greater lengths to kill them properly. She’s just barely cognizant of the fact that Dairon’s chest is still rising and falling.

There are footsteps beyond the door, and Beau can hear both Jester and Yasha calling her name. She’s distracted enough that she doesn’t quite manage to dodge a lunge, but sort of parries it out of the way with her arm. Even still, the point gets about and inch or two into her clavicle, and she’s just far enough away that she can’t kick him backwards.

The door bursts open, and the Gentleman pulls back of his own accord. Recognizing that he’s now outnumbered, there’s  a sudden doorway in the air , and he disappears. Beau’s about to run after him, but then she remembers Dairon lying in the corner.

The elf is stirring feebly by the time Beau makes it to her, and her eyes jerk open when Beau touches her on the shoulder.

Dairon gasps. ‘I’m fine,’ they say, and it’s an utter bald-faced lie. Blood is dripping from the wound across her chest, and Beau rips off her waistcoat to staunch it.

‘Jester!’ she yells. Jester’s at her side in an instant, putting a hand to Dairon’s shoulder. Then, she looks towards Beau. Beau can’t quite interpret the look on her face, but then she looks down, and realizes that blood is absolutely pouring from the wounds left in her torso by the Gentleman’s rapier. Her white shirt is soaked in red.

_ Huh _ .

‘Oh, shit,’ Beau says, and it’s as though noticing the wounds means they start hurting more, because her legs sort of fall out from underneath her, and she has both Yasha and Jester at her side in an instant, both casting their healing magic. The wounds close up, but she can still feel the sting of their memory

‘Where did he go?’

‘I think he might’ve cast _Dimension Door_ ,’ Jester says. ‘Which means he could be anywhere within five hundred feet.’

Beau swears. Never mind how the fuck the Gentleman can cast spells, where the fuck has he gone?

Not far, she thinks. He’s not running. He’ll stay and fight; not because of bravery, but because of arrogance. He still thinks he can beat her.

‘Hold on, let me cast _Locate Object_ again,’ Jester says, and Beau realizes that’s how she’d figure out what room he’d been in in the first place. ‘Okay, he’s not far.’ Jester moves to leave the room, but Beau grabs her by the shoulder.

‘Let me go first,’ she tells the others; Jester, and Yasha, and Dairon, who, somewhere along the line, had started respecting what Beau had to say, and doesn’t question. Beau thinks that maybe she’s a little embarrassed at having been beaten so handily, but then at least he hadn’t strangled them to death. ‘You guys he’ll just kill, but me, he wants to gloat.’

She doesn’t even consider suggesting that they split up  again , and she’s grateful that no-one else does either. They’re all emotionally compromised enough in this fight that taking him one-on-one would be too much of a risk. 

He’s waiting, Jester says, in the room at the end of the hallway. If Beau’s honest with herself, that’s a little unnerving, as though he’s waiting there with a bunch of goons ready to take them all out.

He’s not. He’s alone, sitting in a chair, looking...defeated.

Beau doesn’t lower her sword. ‘I suppose I should have expected it to go down like this,’ he says. ‘Since the moment that Ophelia died.’

‘I don’t like getting fucked over,’ Beau says, evenly, trying to hide the utter rage in her voice. ‘You should have figured that out a long time ago.’

He laughs, but it’s a pained sort of laugh. ‘Forgive me for finding your hypocrisy amusing.  Does the blue one know you murdered your parents?’ A grin curls across that arrogant, blue face. Beau bites back a shudder. ‘Does the white one know you took a little trip down to the Iothia Moorlands, and slaughtered what remained of her tribe?’

Behind Beau, there’s a sharp intake of breath, but she can’t tell if it’s from Yasha, or Jester. Or maybe it had been from her, she’s sort of dissociated enough that she can’t quite tell.

‘If you’re going to talk about us like that, then you should at least use our names!’ Jester says, in a shrill sort of voice. Beau almost laughs. It’s such a Jester thing to say, completely ignoring whatever knife the Gentleman was trying to throw in their direction.

‘You’re right, of course, I’m sorry, Ms Lavorre. I was so sorry to hear about your mother. I had the good fortune to visit her once, perhaps twenty years ago.’ There’s a slight pause. ‘How old would you say you were?’

‘Shut up,’ Jester says, but Beau can hear the anger and the doubt in her voice. She shoots a _Guiding Bolt_ that goes just wide, and the Gentleman barely flinches.

‘You’re right,’ he says, placidly. ‘I’m sure there’re lots of blue folk out there who had a dalliance with the majestic Ruby of the Sea. I would tell you to give Marion my best, but...well...’ He laughs, and it’s an ugly, ugly sound.

It’s only at that moment that Beau realizes just how wounded he is. Her sword may not be as impressive as his, but it can cut deep, and he’s bleeding from half a dozen slashes across his chest. Beau steps forward. She hesitates. Not because she doesn’t want to kill him – she absolutely does, and not because she’s worried that it will turn her to the dark side. There’s so much darkness already in her that a little more isn’t going to make a difference.

‘What’s the matter?’ he laughs. ‘Scared?’ Beau thrust the sword through his chest. The laugh turns to a gurgle, and his hand twitches next to his rapier. Beau doesn’t quite step back in time, but she doesn’t have to; Yasha doesn’t hesitate in the slightest before swinging her greataxe across the Gentleman’s neck. It cleaves in a single, clean stroke.

The head falls to the ground with a final sort of  _thud_ .

There’s a long sort of silence that is finally broken by Jester. ‘Should I put his head back on before we burn him?’

‘Why bother?’ Beau says, with a shrug. She pulls her sword out, and stares at the blood that covers it. She’s already so soaked in the stuff that she doesn’t have anything left to clean it on, so she bends down, and cleans it on the rug. Dairon makes a sound of slight disbelief, to which Beau returns a challenging sort of look. Like: _After everything that’s happened today, you’re going to judge me for how I clean my sword? Really?_

Gods, she’s really going to need a long, hot bath after all of this. Zadash has a bathhouse, she knows, but after all of this, she really doesn’t want to stay in Zadash any more. Even with the Gentleman dead, it’s not a safe place to be for someone of her...wanted status.

Jester’s bright lavender eyes are incandescent with rage. There isn’t even the slightest trace of regret as she puts a hand to the chest of the corpse. Her hand starts to burn. It’s a little bit terrifying, and also...kinda hot. A wonderful, beautiful fire that has nothing to do with the flames that are starting to curl upwards.

It takes a few hours to reduce the body to ashes, which they scoop into a pile, and put into a cheap box that they’d bought from a woodworker in Kamordah.

‘I mean, someone could still raise him,’ Jester says, as she puts the box in her haversack. ‘But like...it’s a really powerful, really expensive spell to do it without a body, and if we’ve gotten rid of all his people, then maybe he won’t have anyone left to do it for him.’ She pauses. ‘He doesn’t have like...a family, does he?’ She – like Beau – is pretending not to have noticed the way he’d maybe sort of implied that Jester is his daughter, and Beau is grateful for it.

‘Doubt it,’ Beau says with a shrug. She doesn’t really care either way. It’s not as though she hasn’t killed people with families before. She’d sort have expected this to be harder, but then, they’ve already gone through so much by the Gentleman’s hand that maybe they deserve something going right for once.

‘Did you—’ Jester starts, and she’s interrupted by an elbow in the side from Yasha. Beau is grateful. She’s pretty sure that Jester had been about to ask about Beau’s parents, and that’s not really a conversation she wants to have, now or ever. What’s done is done.

They don’t even bother to clean up the blood before they leave. Dairon wanders off, and doesn’t return, and Beau knows that the elf has gone back to the monastery. Neither of them are particularly keen on long goodbyes, but Beau would have liked to at least have gotten a hug in. Ugh.

She’s getting soft.

They get back to Kamordah a little after sunrise. This time, they’d been able to take the quick route, aided by a couple of horses stolen from the outskirts of Zadash. Beau doesn’t feel too guilty about that; in a few weeks, she’ll have sent an envoy over to get settled, and she’ll be on her way to practically running the town anyway. It’s good business. Zadash buys a lot of wine, and a lot of drugs, and once she’s there, she’ll be able to get a good foothold back into the north.

That’s almost all of Wildemount, now, plus a good chunk of the Menagerie Coast. Soon, she’ll maybe look at going into Xhorhas, but that’s a pretty fucking big can of worms.

Right now, Beau has Jester, and Yasha, and a whole fucking Empire to play with.

They draw baths, and spend the morning cleaning off, relaxing, and generally having a bit of fun. Beau gets to test just how long she can hold her breath for. The Gentleman is dead, and a weight that Beau hadn’t even realized had been sitting on her chest is lifted.

Tomorrow, or the next day, or the day after that, there’ll be things to do, like oversee shipments, and go over ledgers, and check product, but for tonight…

Beau crawls into bed between Yasha and Jester, feeling their warm bodies against hers,  and the strong, steady beat of their hearts. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What's gonna happen in the epilogue? Who knows, probably a bunch of filthy smut, I guess.


	21. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains:  
> Fingering  
> Mentions of face-sitting/cunnilingus  
> Whipping  
> Restraints

Epilogue

They laze away the morning in bed, having the house staff bring up breakfast, and, a little later on, lunch.

Around two o’clock, Beau finally decides to dress, and wander downstairs. To her surprise, she finds Kara in one of the war rooms, going over inventory. Somewhere along the way (and Beau can’t even remember the reason why), Kara had elected to stay behind.

‘So he’s dead then,’ Kara says. It’s not a question. Beau knows that if he hadn’t been dead, none of them would have come back to Kamordah. It had been...maybe not a suicide mission, but at the very least a mission of no return.

‘Yep.’

‘Did it hurt?’ Was he in pain, she means.

Beau considers the question. It probably hadn’t hurt as much as it could have. From that first cut of Beau’s sword to Yasha slicing his head off, not a great deal of time had passed, but Beau recognized the question for what it was; a search for reassurance.

‘Yes,’ she says.

‘Good.’ There’s a pause. Whether or not the bard can tell that Beau is skirting the edge of truth, it’s hard to tell. ‘And you and…the other two, that’s still happening?’ Beau raises an eyebrow at that question. She’d been so sure for so long that Kara’s feelings had only been platonic. In fact, she’s pretty sure that Kara’s not interested in romance at all. Even still, there’s a strong enough bond that runs between them.

‘Yeah,’ Beau grins, in spite of herself.

‘Good.’ Kara smiles then, too, but it’s a sad sort of smile that has nothing to do with Beau. The bard rubs a thumb across a burn scar on her wrist. ‘I’ve been going over inventory, if you want to take a look.’

_Oh yeah._ After everything that’s happened, there’s still a crime syndicate that they’ve got to run. A crime syndicate that now covers two major cities, plus no small number of towns in between.

Shit.

They’re gonna have to hire some new people.

The next few hours, they play around with the map, and the personnel markers. Yasha and Jester join for a bit, but are as much of a help as they are a hindrance, trying to figure out which people can cover which cities.

The funny thing is, with the Gentleman dead, the still even out on numbers, given that so much of them had gone towards security for Kamordah. If they shore up Zadash, and make sure the money lines the right pockets, then they should stay afloat.

There’s also, of course, the question of the north, but Beau decides that for now, Zadash is enough. The Greying Wildlands and Shadycreek Run are far enough outside of the Empire to be somebody else’s problem, for now. In the meantime, there are enough families in that area that will take shipments of booze, and drugs, and other counterfeit goods. Families that hopefully won’t try and murder her.

There’s also the matter of a potentially defunct brothel in Nicodranas. That, Beau has no control over; what happens to the _Lavish Chateau_ is entirely up to Jester.

‘I don’t _know_ ,’ Jester laments, as they discuss it after dinner. It’s a laid-back sort of conversation, and judging from the fact that she’s sitting on Beau’s face, while Beau is tied to the bedposts, the tiefling is probably not expecting a response straight away. ‘I mean, I like doing it, and it’s my last link to Momma, but you’d want to live here, right?’

If Beau’s honest, she doesn’t really care too much where she actually lives. It’s convenient to live in Kamordah because it’s reasonably centrally located, at least in terms of latitude. Zadash is probably a little better, all things considered, but they don’t have much in the way of property in Zadash yet, not to mention Beau doesn’t want to set up shop in a place where they haven’t quite finished mopping up all the blood.

‘I _do_ like the ocean,’ Yasha admits. The aasimar is three fingers deep in Jester, and Beau keeps having to move her tongue to avoid getting in the way. It’s true, the ocean is a pretty good selling point; and it’s not as though they don’t have access to people with transportation magic. She has a ridiculous sort of vision of the three of them, lying on the beach, watching the sun go down. It’s kind of a ridiculous fantasy, though one that’s looking more and more like an actual possibility. They have some infrastructure in Nicodranas, but if Jester doesn’t want to keep doing her thing, then the Lavish Chateau makes for a pretty good base of operations.

In the end, they decide on a trial run. If things don’t work out, if being in Nicodranas is too far out of the way, or problematic for other reasons, then they can always come back to Kamordah.

It feels a bit like a happily ever after. The sort of happily ever after that Beau had never expected to have. Or even really wanted to have, but she’s not going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

Even then, Beau doesn’t know of any law on Wildemount, or even anywhere else in the world, that lets you marry two people. She supposes that there are probably some gods that don’t give too much of a fuss about it, but her forays into comparative religion has somehow never quite delved into the gods and their beliefs about marriage. Their love, and their commitment, that’s promise enough for Beau.

She’s gonna have to send a break-up letter to Avantika. _Sorry, crazy hot pirate captain, but I’ve got a couple of slightly less crazy people to spank me now._ ~~ _I hope we can still be friends._~~

Still, that doesn’t stop them from having a small bit of a party anyway. Not even a commitment ceremony or anything that hokey, just food, and drinks, and a pretty good time. It’s a bit of a misnomer to call it a party, considering that every other person they know in Nicodranas is in either Beau’s employ, or in Jester’s. So really, it’s dinner date, followed by the same thing they do every night; sexual revelry.

They’ve barely even sent their empty plates down to the kitchen before Beau’s shirt is off. Normally, she’d wait a little while for the food to settle, but it’s been a long day, and really, she just wants to get banged.

‘Patience,’ Yasha says, her eyes twinkling.

‘I mean, is that too much to ask,’ she says, even though it’s not as though either Jester or Yasha are in any way protesting. Jester already has the ropes out, and is mulling over the decision of which whip she’s going to use. In the end, she opts for one of the ones with a couple of dozen or so leather thongs at the end of it, more than a few of which have metal studs embedded in them. Yasha doesn’t look uncomfortable about this, but she seems like she’s more than happy to let Jester take the reins, so to speak. Still, she doesn’t object when Beau eats her out, and watches very intently, as Jester ties Beau between the bedposts. She’s down on her knees, arms suspended, with someone that she loves on either side of her.

‘Wait, wait,’ Beau says suddenly, and Jester stops, flogger still in hand. ‘Kiss me,’ she grins. Jester leans in first, pressing a long, hard kiss to Beau’s lips, even as she pumps a quick finger in and out. She’s grinning as she pulls back.

‘Maybe I should have made you beg for it.’ Yasha rolls her eyes as she follows suit, jumping slightly when Beau accidentally bites her lip on account of the sudden _whack_ against her backside.

‘Sorry,’ Jester says, not sounding particularly sorry at all. Beau’s ass is stinging from where all the metal studs had hit. Beau smiles. Clenches her fists, and give Yasha a wink, and Jester a nod.

‘Again,’ she says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh hey this is done.  
> I wasn't expecting it to be this long, but here we are. Hope you enjoyed it, even though "enjoyed" is probably the wrong word to use.
> 
> I now know that I will never have to write long form smut again, cos it's really fucking hard (no pun intended). There are a few other things I am working on though, so hopefully I will have a new story out soonish. See you all on the flip side!

**Author's Note:**

> As mentioned in the summary, this is a universe about six feet to the left of the current CR universe.
> 
> Beau is a Level 8 Way of the Kensei Monk/Level 3 Rogue Swashbuckler  
> Jester is a Level 11 Cleric of the Light Domain under the Moonweaver  
> Yasha is a Level 11 Storm Herald Barbarian
> 
> There are no immediate concrete plans for any of the others to appear in a significant capacity, but we'll see how the story develops.


End file.
